


ornithology

by magliarosa



Category: Cycling RPF
Genre: 2019 Cycling Season, Birdwatching, Developing Friendships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Sexual Experimentation, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29828070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magliarosa/pseuds/magliarosa
Summary: During their mid-season down time, Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar, by means of a chance encounter, spend their lazy afternoons in the mountains and beaches of Monaco watching birds. As the two months progress, the pair learn quite a bit about the region's avian fauna.They learn quite a bit about themselves, too.
Relationships: Tadej Pogačar/Primož Roglič
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. starlings and terns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spaceboy_niko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceboy_niko/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok first up i don't know shit about birds. all the bird stuff is pulled from the wikipedia list of birds in Monaco. For context, this fic takes place in between the 2019 Slovenian National Championships and the 2019 Vuelta.
> 
> i don't know where this idea came from but it's cute and i'm rolling with it after writing "cold," which was an experiment regarding writing about developing friendships. this one's a little thornier, and the elision into romance is more complicated. It's bittersweet, with emphasis on the sweet.
> 
> i'm also going with a kind of different approach to Roglič yet again here, because that man is a mystery to me and can be written a million different ways, but this one focuses on the fact that Roglič's a little bit out there and weird, especially compared to Tadej who is, like, exceedingly normal.
> 
> Once again, love to get some feedback on this fic, which is a change of pace from all that Mathieu and Wout stuff, and also per usual, my tumblr is in my profile. (not on discord much these days) 
> 
> For spaceboy_niko, this website's #1 Pogla connoisseur.

Droplets of sweat roll down Tadej Pogačar's forehead as he crests a particularly difficult and remote climb on the outskirts of Monaco. He takes a moment to drink in the picturesque scenery and, had he not done this - had he not let his eyes flicker up to the side of the road for a handful of seconds - none of what follows would ever have happened.

It’s a flash of yellow and black, perched atop a flat bluff, and when he sees it, he thinks, _Wait a minute._ Before the descent gets too steep, he swings around for another look, and, lo and behold, there is Primož Roglič sunning himself like a cat on a windowsill, his celeste Bianchi bike leaning up against the rock he’s sprawled out on, arms folded behind his head.

Tadej wonders what he should do in this situation. Due to the momentum of his bicycle on pavement, he does not have much time to make a decision, and so, on impulse, he stops.

“Oi,” he calls out, unsure of what volume at which to do so, the end result being a shy little half-shout. Primož sits up, Ray-Ban sunglasses splayed crooked across his button nose, his cycling jersey unzipped, revealing his pale chest, blotched with the beginnings of sunburn. He acknowledges Tadej, gives him a curt wave, then lays back down again.

Tadej winces behind his polarized lenses. _Damn it, Rogla._

Tadej and Primož are, at this stage, two people who mostly know _of_ each other. They've seen each other around back in Slovenia, have been formally introduced, have sometimes chatted in the peloton during the early half of Tadej’s first season as a World Tour-level cyclist, but they are by no means close. They could hardly be called friends, or even really the faintest of acquaintances, but still, each of these brief moments in the company of the other man is precious to Tadej, for whom Primož Roglič is a personal hero.

Faced with an increasingly unbearable social awkwardness, Tadej chooses to take the plunge.

“What are you up to?” he asks, dismounting and scrambling up the small, rocky hill on the side of the road, bike on his shoulder. He leans it against Primož’s, careful to keep his pedals away from the other man’s spokes.

“Birdwatching,” Primož answers, paying Tadej no mind. Tadej furrows his brow.

“Birdwatching?”

Primož frowns. “Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Huh,” Tadej murmurs. “Well, uh, are you planning on heading back down anytime soon? I could ride with you, or –“

“No,” Primož interjects in a detached, polite tone.

_Ouch._

“Oh...” Tadej trails off, untangling his bike, knowing full well when his presence is not welcome. “Sorry to bother you, then. I was, uh, just out. Thought I’d say hi.”

A warm laugh, a broad smile.

“Hi, Tadej. Good to see you, huh?”

Tadej can’t stop himself from smiling back when he says, “You too.”

_Well, at least this part was nice._

The younger man exhales, not realizing he'd been holding his breath for the duration of their brief, terse conversation. He makes his way cautiously back down the hill, swings his leg over his bike.

“Catch you around, then?” he offers.

“Yes, of course,” Primož answers, still lying on his back.

“Bye,” Tadej says dumbly.

Another wave.

He sets off, gathers his momentum, and as he leans into aero-tuck, hands firmly in the drops, Tadej’s lost in thought – well, as lost in thought as one can be when descending down a winding road at 60 kilometers an hour.

_Birdwatching. Of all things._

* * *

Monaco in July is not a particularly pleasant place. It’s hot and humid and crawling with tourists looking to either appear wealthy or at least get a glimpse of those who are. The further out one travels away from the bustling center of Monte Carlo, the more one can appreciate the place for its natural loveliness, it’s craggy outcrops and sparse, mountainous terrain, each winding road offering sprawling views of the sea. The second Tadej is back in the mountains, he remembers why he doesn’t mind living here so much.

When he crests the same climb the following day, he’s astonished to see Primož out sunbathing once more, as though the man had never left. At first, remembering the previous day’s vexatious interactions, he rides right on by – but halfway down the mountain, something within him decides to give it another go, and as soon as he has a clear view of the road in front of him, he checks for cars, swings around, and pedals back up the hill, rolling to a stop. Tires squeaking against the hot pavement, he shifts his weight and unclips.

“Birdwatching?” he asks. Primož sits up.

“Oi, Tadej,” he greets before laying back down. Tadej's not going to let Primož get away with shaking him off that easily.

After a rather inelegant scramble up the embankment, he takes off his helmet, rests it and his bike against the rock once more. He climbs atop the limestone outcrop to sit beside Primož, who shifts his weight a bit in response, cheeks pink from the sun. Squinting from behind his sunglasses, Tadej looks up and sees a bird soaring gracefully across the sky, recognizing it as some kind of gull.

“So, uh, what bird is that?” he inquires.

Primož shrugs, puts his arms back behind his head.

“I don’t know their names,” he says. “Seagull, I think.”

Tadej frowns. “Isn’t the point of birdwatching to identify the birds?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know, huh? I just like to watch them.”

The younger man decides to give it a shot, stretches out onto his back beside Primož, cradling the back of his head with his hands as he stares into the endless blue expanse of the sky. A different bird flaps its way into their field of vision, this one less elegant than the gull. Lumbering.

“That one’s a pigeon,” Primož comments, with a slight chuckle. “I know that one. They like to fuck on my balcony.”

Tadej, having never heard Primož swear before, bursts into nervous laughter.

“My balcony’s enclosed,” he adds, just to keep the words flowing. “So no pigeon fucking.”

“Hmm,” Primož hums, effectively putting an end to this particular conversational topic. For some time, they lie there and wait for another bird to pass by, Tadej wondering how Primož is so comfortable with silence. A wispy cloud drifts overhead, made ragged by the slight breeze.

“This isn’t a very good spot,” Tadej observes.

“Patience,” Primož tells him. Sure enough, another bird hurdles across the horizon, this one small and light and fast and different in profile than the pigeon and the seagull.

“What’s that?” Tadej asks.

“Don’t know,” Primož responds. “Pretty, though. Fast.”

Tadej furrows his brow. “Why do you do this?”

“Mm?”

“Watch birds.”

“It’s nice,” Primož explains. “I like the birds, even though I don’t know what kinds they are. I like to watch them fly, see how they move. On a pretty day like this one, I like to lay out in the sun and have a good think, eh?”

Tadej’s eyebrows crease with concern behind his glasses. He speaks with insecurity.

“Am I disturbing your good think?”

“Hm? No. Not really."

“Good,” Tadej mumbles to himself. Primož ignores him. For another hour, they recline quietly and observe the day pass, waiting with lazy perseverance for a bird to come around and break their silence.

When evening creeps upon them, they eventually part, traveling in separate directions.

* * *

Thus, Tadej Pogačar, in the downtime between the 2019 Slovenian National Championships and the Vuelta a España, begins birdwatching with Primož Roglič. This activity and its resulting schedule is an informal agreement between them. On days when it isn’t raining, Tadej climbs to the top of the remote hill and finds Primož already there, jersey unzipped, the landscape reflected in his crooked Ray-Bans. After a sparsely-worded greeting, Tadej stashes his bike and joins Primož on the rock and they lie there for an hour or two simply looking up, waiting for something to happen. When a bird enters their field of vision, Tadej feels his chest swell with excitement, for this bird grants him permission to speak to this strange, taciturn, quixotic man whom he reveres so greatly.

For the first few sessions, they don’t say much of anything, simply content to make idle remarks on whatever bird happens to come their way. Gradually, they weave idle small talk into their time together, but Primož is a poor conversationalist, and most of the topics of discussion initiated by Tadej die on the vine, their momentum lost. It'll take a while for them to build up towards any real sense of shared intimacy, something Tadej realizes rather early on and accepts, albeit begrudgingly.

“You just had a baby, didn’t you?” he asks Primož one day, noticing how the edges of cumulus clouds expand with crisp slowness in the humid July air, a sight that becomes distorted in the blue polarized lens of his cycling glasses.

“Yes,” Primož says.

“What’s that like?” Tadej fingers the elastic at the edge of his team jersey which has begun to ride up above the hem of his bibs.

“He sleeps a lot,” Primož answers, wiping a bead of sweat from the side of his nose. “Except when I am sleeping. Then he does not sleep.”

Tadej chuckles. “Is that why you want to get out of the house so bad?”

Primož frowns. “Who says I do? Want to get out of the house, that is.”

“Oh.” Tadej cringes. _Strike one._

An irritated sigh. “I just like to be outside, you know?”

A squawking, wheedling clamor startles them and, out of nowhere, a flock of starlings swarms the sky, undulating and quivering in a black, noisy wave.

“That’s a lot of birds,” Tadej observes, grateful for the change in subject, a welcome distraction from his social faux pas.

“Starlings,” Primož comments. “I know those.”

“Kind of creepy aren’t they?”

“Yes. The way they form such big groups.”

“I wonder how they know how to stay together like that.”

A smile twinges at the corner of Primož’s lips.

“It’s like a peloton,” he posits. “You get used to riding so close to other people that eventually you move with them like it’s second nature.”

Tadej thinks he's beginning to understand why Primož likes to watch birds so much. He gains an appreciation for the starlings after hearing this, and whenever he sees a flock of them screeching and whistling and shitting everywhere, he considers that their lives and his own aren’t so different after all.

This humbles him and elevates the starlings.

* * *

After a few days, Tadej decides, rather presumptuously, to buy Primož a gift in an attempt to further ingratiate himself with the other man. Early on a Tuesday morning, he goes to a bookstore downtown and purchases two copies of an English-language field guide devoted to the birds of Monaco, shoves them in an old musette he has lying around from team practice, and pedals his way to the top of the hill, where he is greeted with a wave from his recurring companion.

“I got you something,” Tadej announces casually, though the excitement shines in his goggle-concealed eyes.

Primož sits up. “Oh?”

Tadej reaches into his bag and hands him the book. Primož considers it.

“Huh,” he acknowledges, his eyebrows raised. “Thanks.”

“I got one for myself, too,” Tadej notes, taking out his own copy. “I figured if I was going to watch the birds, I’d at least like to learn what they are.”

“Makes sense.”

Brimming with anticipation, Tadej lays on his back and waits for a bird, any bird to show up. When a gull soars high above them, he grabs his book and, with some clumsiness, flips open to the section on gulls, only to look back up and see nothing, the gull already well out of their sight.

On this particular afternoon, Tadej quickly discovers that birdwatching is, in fact, rather difficult.

The birds are too far away, too fast, too tricky to make out in the glare of the bright sunlight. After several failed attempts at identification, the only bird he’s able to discern is the one he already knew from memory, the humble pigeon. Primož, meanwhile, has not even touched his book. It rests beside him, his water bottle on top of it, and, feeling rather rejected and frustrated upon seeing this, Tadej watches Primož relaxing as he always does, one leg sprawled out, basking in the summer heat until it’s time for them to part ways once more.

Frowning on the ride home, Tadej is determined to make something of this whole endeavor.

* * *

On the weekend, Tadej, in casual clothes, makes a stop at a sporting goods store and buys two pairs of inexpensive binoculars. His new purchases tucked away in a backpack, he bikes down to the beach and sits on a towel in the sand with his field guide in his lap and his new toy strung by a camera strap around his neck.

He observes a flock of gulls picking at the sand, is relieved to find that there are only two gulls in his field guide, the yellow-legged gull and the black-headed gull, both of which are self-explanatory. Seeing that these particular gulls do not have black heads, he identifies them as the yellow-legged ones. Solving this simple mystery fulfills him more than he expects it to.

By the time he’s done counting the birds he sees, he’s identified, with some certainty, seven of them and, sunburnt on the back of his neck, he leaves the beach satisfied.

* * *

“Here,” Tadej says, handing the other pair of binoculars to Primož, who takes them from him.

“Oh, perfect,” Primož smiles, and Tadej could weep for joy knowing that he’d done something right for once.

Primož holds the binoculars up to his sunglasses, adjusts the zoom and points out a bird flapping overhead. Tadej sees it with his naked eye and, grabbing his own binoculars, manages to zero in on it after a little bit of frantic sky-searching.

“That’s a black-headed gull,” he announces, trying to conceal the excitement in his voice.

“Oh?” Primož hums, curious. “How do you know?”

“I went to the beach,” Tadej explains. “Watched for a while. There’s only two types of pure gulls around here – yellow-legged and black-headed. The black-headed ones, well, have black heads, and the yellow-legged ones don't."

"I see."

"There are lots of other seabirds though," continues Tadej, his heart swelling with pride. "The terns kind of look like the gulls but, they’re, like, more sleek, more aerodynamic. They’ve got cool feathers, too, and they’re fast. The sandpipers look like gulls too, but they’ve got long legs - like they’re walking on stilts - and they mostly just stay by the shore.”

“Wow,” Primož remarks, audibly impressed. “Good on you, Tadej.”

“Thanks,” Tadej beams, thrilled that this man is impressed with him in some way, any way.

“It’ll be easier now with the binoculars,” Primož observes. “To see the birds.”

“Definitely.”

Awkwardness. “So, uh, can I keep them?”

“Of course,” Tadej urges, touched by the request for some reason. “They’re yours.”

“Thanks. Nice gift.”

Another gull. They bury their faces in the binoculars and track it.

“Yellow-legged,” Primož notes, a quick learner. “I’d like to see a tern, though.”

Tadej flips to the page in the field guide with the terns in them. Primož glances at it.

“Huh,” he hums, taking a closer look. “Cool guys.”

He points to the picture of the gull-billed tern and smiles. “Kind of looks like me, huh?”

Tadej studies the picture, drags his eyes along the sleek black feathers of the bird’s crest, its neat, pale plumage, its compact, aerodynamic form. He laughs.

“Yeah,” he grins. “He kind of does.”

“Have you seen this guy yet? The gull-billed tern?”

Tadej finds it endearing that the older man addresses the tern using human pronouns.

“I’ve seen some terns," Tadej concedes, "But I’m not able to tell them apart yet.”

Primož takes the book from Tadej, takes off his Ray-Bans to get a better look.

“Really?” he remarks. “I think they look quite different. The beaks are different, the feet.”

Tadej looks again. Lo and behold.

“Hm, yeah,” he mutters, feeling stupid.

“Where did you see him?”

Now thoroughly intimidated by Primož’s unmediated gaze, Tadej finds it hard to force words to come out of his mouth.

“The beach,” he answers slowly, “Diving into the water.”

An expression of excited surprise. “Oh, he dives?”

“Yeah,” Tadej smiles, excited by Primož's excitement, “He’s pretty athletic, too.”

“Diving is like the ski jumping of swimming,” Primož remarks, thus furthering his personal connection with the animal.

“Wow, I, uh, never thought of it that way.”

The older man turns to Tadej, looks at him with sudden abject seriousness.

“I’d like to see him.”

“What?” Tadej stammers, withering under the stare's intensity.

“The tern.”

* * *

That’s when they start going to the hidden beach just outside of Monte Carlo, the one tucked between two bluffs of rocks, its status as private or public forever ambiguous.

It’s a sacred place, a sandy reprieve from the coastline’s massive cathedrals of stone. Primož found this beach right after he moved by studying maps, trying to determine where he could enjoy the sea in proximity to as few people as humanly possible. He remembers looking up the plot of land in the library, trying to glean whether or not he was allowed to go there, with little luck. His English is terrible, and his French is even worse, which did not help matters. After several attempts to search for records followed by a handful of clandestine reconnaissance missions, he came to the conclusion that the beach is simply no man’s land.

Their ears are filled with the sound of waves crashing against stone, the tide creeping up to kiss the tips of their bare toes. Tadej picks grains of sand out of the elastic trim of his bib shorts.

“Alright.” Primož turns towards Tadej, shouting slightly in order to be heard over the roaring surf. “The tern.”

Tadej nods dutifully. They sit there in the shadow of the cliffs peering through their binoculars, pausing to point out a handful of gulls here and there as they wait with anticipation.

It doesn’t take long for them to spot a tern – being rather common birds – perhaps only twenty minutes or so. Emerging from the horizon, soaring into view on tapered wings, it hovers above the turgid waves, patient, waiting to strike.

“That’s the Sandwich tern,” Primoz declares after a few seconds of observation. Tadej’s shocked.

“How the hell can you tell?”

“He’s got a little mullet. The tip of his bill is yellow.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tadej swears admiringly. “That’s one hell of an eye you’ve got there.”

Primož is pleased to hear this. “Thanks," he says.

They watch the tern circle, casting a small shadow on the surface of the sea.

“He’s gonna dive soon,” Tadej predicts. “He sees a fish. All that circling…”

“Ah, look,” Primož points, and sure enough, the tern sweeps up, gathers its momentum and plunges into the water with grace and speed, a perfect example of nature’s wonderful efficiency.

“Wow,” Primož whistles, “So fast.”

The tern emerges victorious, a little fish trapped between its beak, its scales glinting in the sunlight.

“Poor fish,” Tadej murmurs.

“That’s life,” Primož replies with a shrug.

The pair watch the tern fly away, back to wherever and whatever it is terns fly home to. When it's out of their vision, they return their attention to the low horizon in hopeful anticipation of perhaps seeing another one.

The sea breeze turns their cheeks pink, and as they wait, the summer sun changes in subtle hues from bright afternoon to golden evening.

Tadej smiles to himself.


	2. woodpeckers and eagles

Gravel crunches beneath their boots as they make their way along the narrow trail, necks craned upward, eyes peeled. Around them, the sound of birds, dozens of them, singing in a language neither man can speak nor interpret, but they listen anyway, wanting to hear, wanting to understand.

Tadej’s hiking boots are stiff and brand new, and despite his wool socks, he already feels blisters forming around his pinky toes. Primož, however, is a consummate hiker, having grown up nestled among the mountains, his deep affection for the outdoors idiomatic and conspicuous to all who know him. As he moves his binoculars away from his face, Tadej sees the light of life in the older man's eyes, his smile bright with childish wonder. The sight touches Tadej, stokes the fire of a budding fondness.

_I am only just beginning to understand you._

Primož, over the course of their week and a half among the birds, has not said much to Tadej about his own life, about his goals or anxieties or daily goings-on. Still, Tadej has managed to learn a great deal about his strange, eccentric compatriot by means of careful observation.

Roglič is an elusive man, Tadej thinks, scanning the trees for movement. He is very private and, deeper down, shy - one of those rare souls who struggles with empathy but makes up for it with kindness. He’s terrible at reading social cues and can come off as cold at times, but the earnestness he shows at others compensates for any shortcomings. While Tadej finds the way his compatriot views the world to be simple and even borderline naïve - all wrapped up in dreams and belief in oneself - this is something that, like all elements of Primož, is more charming than infuriating.

Despite being kept at arm’s length, Tadej Pogačar likes Primož Roglič very much, looks forward to seeing him, always walking away from the experience buzzing with happiness. Their nascent friendship is one Tadej cherishes with grateful reverence.

Primož uses the hem of his white t-shirt to wipe away the sweat from his forehead, revealing the pale, muscular expanse of his stomach as a breeze rushes over the exposed rock and foliage of the coastal landscape. In the distance, the drumming of beak against wood.

“Did you hear that?” Primož whispers, as though he’s afraid of the birds eavesdropping on their conversation, thus blowing their cover.

“Hear what?” Tadej asks, embarrassed that he’s missed whatever it is he’s supposed to be listening for.

“Shh. Listen.”

Tadej concentrates. He hears birds twittering, hears wind rustling through brush-like coastal foliage, hears his own heartbeat throbbing in his ears. The drumming again, like a little hollow jackhammer.

“Oh,” Tadej says, “I hear it.”

“Woodpecker,” Primož mutters, digging his field guide out of the back pocket of his baggy khaki cargo shorts, an article of clothing Tadej finds hard to refrain from laughing at. He leans over Primož’s shoulder to get a better look at the page.

“It’s gotta be this guy,” Primož says, pointing to the picture of the Great spotted woodpecker, a handsome bird, black with white spots on its wings and a splash of red on the back of its neck, its slightly-curved beak long and elegant. Tadej furrows his brow.

"How can you tell? We haven’t even seen it!”

The bird continues its racket.

“Easy, yeah?” Primož remarks, giving Tadej a bashful smile, his eyes bright with excitement. “Process of elimination. See,” he points to a map in the book, “the Great-spotted woodpecker is common here, in Monaco, yes. The Black woodpecker is common further north, only coming here sometimes, so likely not him.”

Tadej frowns. “What about the two woodpeckers?”

“Ah,” Primož elaborates, feeling quite clever, “It says here that the Eurasian wryneck, this brown little guy, and the European green woodpecker, this big weird guy here – they don’t bang at trees so much. They eat ants and stuff off the ground or in trees that are already dead. So,” he concludes, a sloppy grin on his face, “It has to be the Great spotted, yeah?”

“Damn,” Tadej whistles. “Impressive detective work there, Rogla.”

“Thank you, thank you.” A pause. “Now, let’s see if we can get a look at him, huh?”

Tadej nods, raises his binoculars to his face, desperate to be the one to spot the bird first. In a stroke of luck, he notices a flash of red against the dark brown bark of a contorted, windswept pine.

“There,” he exclaims, pointing at the tree. “That’s him.”

Primož’s finger scrolls along the zoom knob of his binoculars. His face splits into a grin.

“Aha!” he cheers. “Good eye.”

“Thank you,” Tadej beams, genuinely proud of himself. They stand there in silence and watch the bird go about its business of drilling, concealed by the tree’s dense, bottle brush-like needles.

“How does he not get a concussion?” Primož inquires. “Banging his head like that.”

“Dunno,” Tadej shrugs. “Maybe he’s got a special brain.”

“I like him,” Primož declares emphatically and, for a second, Tadej finds himself weirdly envious of the bird.

“Me too,” the younger man says, even though he doesn’t really find the woodpecker all that impressive.

“You have the checklist, yeah?”

Tadej digs out the pen and the pair of folded up pages from the pockets of his olive chino shorts and hands it to Primož.

“Can I use your back again?” Primož asks, returning his field guide to his back pocket from which the top half sticks out precariously. Tadej groans, but turns around regardless. Primož pinions the pages against Tadej's shoulders, the younger man shivering at the strange sensation of the pen tip dragging words through the paper and his collared shirt. 

“Okay, done."

Tadej lets out the breath he’s been holding, takes the list from his companion and reads the atrocious scribbling proclaiming the date and location of their sighting.

“I can barely read this,” he mutters, squinting. Primož rolls his eyes.

“You write next time, then.”

“Okay,” Tadej jeers, “I will.”

Primož laughs, startling the woodpecker away, the white spots on its wings catching the sun as it disappears deep into the thick brush for cover.

“They love those fucking bushes, huh?” Primož complains. “Always hiding in there.”

“I mean we _are_ pretty scary to them,” Tadej muses. “Cutting their trees down and what not. Making loud noises. Ruining the environment.”

Primož seems crestfallen by the thought and Tadej regrets putting it out there.

“Let’s keep going,” he mumbles. “Still got an hour or so before I have to head home.”

“Mm, yeah. Good idea.”

They make their way along the winding path, keeping their eyes peeled for any flash of movement or color. Their journey up Tête de Chien is accompanied by birds prattling in whistly fits and starts, much to the men's chagrin.

“I wish I knew their songs,” Primož sighs. “I like that they sing.”

“Yeah, me too." 

“I wonder why they sing, eh? For what purpose.”

Tadej contemplates this. “Probably to find a mate," he offers.

“Probably, yes,” Primož concedes, nodding. “Still.”

“Still what?”

“I like to think they sing because it feels good - because they’re proud of their song, you know? Same as us humans.”

“Yeah,” Tadej murmurs, considering such a possibility. Primož turns towards him, a sincere, ponderous expression on his face.

“Do you think they know?”

The younger man’s forced to look away - the stare he's under is too intense, too pure. “Know what?”

“That their songs are beautiful.”

Tadej’s heart lurches in his chest. _What a profound, poetic question._

“I hope so,” he answers after a long pause. Tadej gazes out at the panoramic view of the city, light sparkling off the crests of the harbor’s little waves. His voice is quiet.

“I hope so.”

* * *

The moment the pair finally let down their guard transpires the following Saturday, sooner than Tadej is expecting and sooner than Primož is prepared for.

Tires rumble along winding, mountainous roads, mingling in their ears with the rush of wind blowing through the fully open windows of Primož’s white Volkswagen hatchback. Rocky slopes and sky blur past as the duo make their way out of Monte Carlo and into the more remote areas northeast of it, near Monti.

“So,” Primož drawls, glancing at his unusually glum and taciturn companion, “Any reason why you wanted to get out of the city so bad, huh?”

Tadej turns his attention away from the world outside, shoulders hunched, arms folded.

“Me and my girlfriend got into a big fight this morning,” he confesses, still unsure as to whether this is something he should be informing Primož of. Judging by the look on the older man’s face, he’s not able to tell either. The awkwardness is palpable. 

“Uh-huh,” Primož hums in acknowledgement, clicking his tongue against the inside of his mouth, eyes darting between his companion and the road ahead. “Tough situation.”

“Yeah,” Tadej mumbles. “Not great.”

“May I ask what happened?” Primož inquires, audibly cautious. His companion fidgets for a bit as he thinks over what he should say. This is uncertain terrain.

“Ugh, it’s so fucking stupid,” Tadej finally huffs, thumb pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Most fights are,” Primož muses, adding hastily: “But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, eh?”

“No, no,” Tadej protests, shaking his head. “I’m fine talking about it. It’s just stupid is all.”

Primož frowns. “So what happened, hm?”

Another heavy sigh. “She’s pissed at me because I told her we can’t get a dog – but, like, seriously, Rogla, we really can’t, you know? We’re both gone all the time, there’d be no one around to take care of it.”

“Oof, yeah, sounds rough,” Primož winces. A pause. “She’s a cyclist too, yeah?”

“Yeah, at Ljubljana.” 

“Nice, nice,” the other man comments absently. “How’s that, hm? Dating another cyclist.”

Tadej remembers that Primož’s girlfriend is not a cyclist, something he cannot fathom.

“It’s a mixed bag, I guess,” he admits. “Like, it’s great that we do the same thing in life and are really serious about it. Because of that, we can understand each other, you know?”

“But…”

“ _But_ , we’re both always out racing, and if our schedules don’t line up, which they almost never do, we rarely ever get to see each other.”

A slow nod. “Hm, that’s tough, then."

“Yeah.”

“I think I know why she wants the dog so bad, then,” Primož says after a brief moment of consideration.

“Oh yeah?” Tadej’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Because all she's told me is that it's because dogs are giving and empathetic and that some psychologists say they’re good for your mental health and shit like that, and when I said no, she accused me of hating animals and having no compassion for other living things, which is just, like, not true.”

“It has nothing to do with the dog,” the older man tells him, point blank, with a sigh.

A perplexed frown. “Then what is it?”

“She’s lonely, Tadej.”

The realization hits Tadej like a ton of bricks and a rush of guilt washes over him. _Fuck..._

“Why didn’t she just say that, then?” he groans, defensive. “Why can’t women just, like, say what they mean?”

“She doesn’t want you to know,” Primož replies. “But at the same time, she does. This was her way of telling you.”

Confusion. “Does this mean I should let her get the dog?”

“The dog is irrelevant.”

Tadej throws his hands up in frustration. “So what do I do, then?”

“I don’t know, huh?” Primož admits with a sigh. “Women are like this, you know? They have to love something at any given minute. They need something to love when you’re gone.”

Quietly: “Is that why you and Lora had a baby?”

Primož’s eyes dart about, nervous. “I won’t say that it didn't play a role,” he answers, cryptically. “But it’s not the main reason, no. A kid is different than a dog, Tadej – there’s a lot more to consider.”

“Okay, fine," Tadej concedes. "But explain to me why we don’t get like that when _they’re_ gone? All weepy and shit.”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Primož hums. “It’s for our jobs, I guess, yeah? We accept this.” He turns to Tadej, stares at him inquisitively. “Do you not get lonely?”

_What a question._

“Like, I miss Urška when I’m gone, of course I do,” Tadej acknowledges, measuring his response. “But also, I’m surrounded by teammates and soigneurs and shit all the time – how could I possibly be lonely?”

His companion nods, saying nothing. Afraid he’s given the wrong answer, Tadej fires Primož’s question back at him.

“Why? Do you get lonely?”

Primož looks away.

“Yes,” he answers quietly. “All the time.”

The younger man doesn’t know how to respond other than with a mumbled _Sorry._ He’s not used to people being so frank, so honest about such things.

Asphalt turns into gravel, blowing dust into the car until the windows roll back up. The pair spend the rest of the drive in uneasy silence.

* * *

Despite the lovely summer day, the trail is relatively free of people, which is good news for the two birdwatchers, seeing as birds are not so fond of people. The scenery is not unsimilar to that of Monaco – craggy expanses of mountains topped with grasses and diminutive, wind-swept trees – but the absence of tourists leaves both men feeling as though they are uniquely alone in the world. (A few kilometers in, they turn a corner and are reminded by the sweeping view of the sea and the city below that the world hasn't, in fact, forsaken them.) 

“Sorry if the conversation in the car was awkward,” Tadej murmurs as they take a seat on a gently sloped embankment proffering a wonderful view of the Maritime Alps' austere, sprawling ridgebacks. Primož removes his binoculars from their carrying case, holds them up to his eyes.

“Not awkward at all,” he replies, distracted. “It’s nice to talk.”

This does not satisfy his companion, but Tadej decides to drop the subject anyway.

“Okay, well,” he mumbles, “I liked talking with you.” It feels like a confession.

The moment of vulnerability is extinguished instantly when, not a half-second later, Primož spots a bird far off in the distance.

“Aha!” he exclaims, pointing at the sky. “Eagle.”

Tadej tilts his own pair of binoculars up towards the sky and accepts, albeit chagrined, that things have returned to normal between them, at least for the rest of the day. Following the line of Primož’s finger, Tadej manages to locate the bird, a brown blob becoming clearer as he adjusts the focus.

“Damn,” he whistles, taking in the bird’s mottled brown plumage, the hook of its sharp beak, the way it soars effortlessly, gliding from thermal to thermal. “Look at it go.”

“Golden eagle,” Primož tells him. “They have those in Slovenia too. Famous bird.”

Tadej lets his binoculars hang around his neck as he retrieves the list and pen from his pocket. Not wanting to disturb the other man, he uses his thigh as a writing desk, the pen nib poking a small hole through the page as he writes. Once finished, he returns the list to his pocket and his eyes to his lenses. In silence, they watch the eagle make long, sweeping circles around the bluffs and cliffsides until it disappears behind a nearby peak.

On this trip, the two check off no fewer than seven new birds off their list: a gaggle of drab little dunnocks; a passing flock of moody, raven-like rooks; a Blue rock thrush displaying its murky eponymous plumage; a rather dignified looking Hawfinch; a female Black redstart, which took Primož quite some time to distinguish from its cousin, the common redstart, and its cousin, the European robin, both of which they also spotted; and, finally, of course, the eagle.

As the sky begins to mellow into a mix of pink and gold, the pair make their way back to the car thoroughly satisfied, Tadej feeling much better than he did this morning, his heart warmed and made calm by their shared activity and easy-going companionship.

The second tires hit pavement again, Primož opens the windows and the car is filled with fresh air.

Tadej’s voice is barely audible above the sounds of driving.

“Primož?”

“Mm?”

“I really like doing this. The birdwatching.”

Primož smiles, his expression gentle. “Me too, huh? Nice to be outside, look at nature.”

“Yeah,” Tadej smiles back. “It really is.”

There’s no need to say anything else, and Tadej’s starting to find comfort in not having to talk so much.

With the wind rushing through his hair, he spends the rest of the trip quietly watching Primož drive, and by the time the road they’re on empties out into the coastline, the shadows of the mountains become blurred with the cool hues of the concluding day.

When Tadej steps into his apartment, a full meal is waiting for him on the table, his girlfriend Urška at the head of it, looking up at him with shining eyes. She is sorry. Remembering his earlier conversation, he releases himself from the grudge he’d been harboring since the beginning of the day. He gives her a kiss on the top of her head and tells her he forgives her.

As he watches the city lights twinkle against the glare of his balcony window, Tadej’s phone buzzes loudly in his pocket, distracting him from his wandering thoughts. It's a text message. He opens it to see a picture of himself sitting on the grassy embankment, binoculars held up to his face, the dramatic landscape unfurling in the background. A caption.

_Sorry I couldn’t get the eagle in there._

Smiling, he taps out a response.

_Maybe next time._


	3. kingfishers and egrets

“Fuck, I’m getting sunburnt,” Tadej mutters, wincing as he rolls onto his bare back, sand cascading down the sides of his bone-dry swim trunks. Primož, watching the sky with glacial patience, ignores him. Tadej frowns.

"Oi, Rogla."

"Mm?"

"Pass me another beer will you?"

"Yeah."

Still glued to his binoculars, Primož takes a can of beer out of his cooler and pops it open with one hand, a feat his companion finds impressive. He hands it off to Tadej, who drinks deeply before nestling it between his crossed legs.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Primož responds, retrieving another beer for himself in the same manner.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Tadej asks.

Still scouring the horizon. “Do what?”

“Open a beer with one hand.”

“College,” he replies tersely, before taking a sip.

“So that’s what they teach in college,” Tadej teases. He's cut off by his partner's sudden stirring.

“Aha!” Primož almost drops his beer he’s so animated with excitement. “There he is, the fucking bastard!”

Eyes wide, Tadej moves his own beverage to a safer place and rushes to get his binoculars, brushing the sand off the lenses.

“Where?”

Primož points northeast, towards a distant outcrop of rocks. “He’s coming closer.”

“Common kingfisher my ass,” Tadej mutters, scanning the sky. “If they’re so common, why’d it take so long to find one?”

“Damn, he’s really blue, huh? Like a gemstone.”

A frown, more searching. “I don’t see him.”

“He’s moving fast, keep looking. Follow my finger.”

Tadej’s just about to give up hope when he finally sees a flash of aquamarine and orange careen across the sky, moving with remarkable speed.

“Oh man,” he exclaims. “There he is!”

“Fucking so tiny, huh? Wow.”

Tadej tries his best to keep the bird in his field of vision.

“Yeah, the pictures make him look way bigger.”

“Fuck, we did it,” Primož is borderline giddy. "We fucking did it."

They’ve been looking for this bird for literal weeks.

The kingfisher disappears behind a cliff just as quickly as it came.

“Annnd he’s gone,” Tadej drawls.

“Yep. He’s gone.”

Tadej fetches the checklist and pen out of the drawstring bag he’d brought down to their secluded beach.

“Back, please.”

Primož puts down his binoculars and hunches over, facing away from his companion who proceeds use the other man's bare shoulders as a steady surface on which to write the sighting information down.

“Done.” Click of the pen. Tadej returns it and the list back to its safe place of storage. He reunites with his beer, from which he takes a long celebratory drink. In the sweltering heat, the alcohol goes right to his head.

“Christ, that took forever,” Primož swears.

"Yeah, seriously."

“Well then," Primož muses. "I think I’m going to get nice and drunk and then go for a little swim now.”

“Don’t drown,” Tadej jeers. Primož turns to face him, looks him up and down.

“You’re already drunk,” he observes, a grin toying at the corner of his mouth. Tadej blushes, something he only does when he is, in fact, drunk.

“No way,” he says, waving the other man away.

“Your rosy Slovene complexion says otherwise,” Primož teases.

“Man, fuck you,” Tadej laughs, his companion laughing with him.

Primož finishes the beer in a handful of swallows before it even begins to get warm. He crushes the can against the hard top of the cooler, throwing the rubbish inside.

It’s the Monday of the last week of July.

* * *

After their respective trainings in the morning, the pair have gone out to watch the birds every day for three weeks straight, never missing an outing unless it’s raining, and by the third week the rain no longer deters them either. (Tadej recalls a time they sat on a different beach in plastic ponchos looking for Eurasian coots, soaked to the bone.) Over the course of these short weeks, they’ve grown ever more intimate, gradually opening up about their lives.

During one of their outings, Primož tells Tadej about growing up in the early years of post-Communist Slovenia (a somber and confusing experience) and Tadej tells Primož about visiting his father’s office to test out a new chair he was designing (the chair was good-looking but very uncomfortable.) At the end of another, Tadej complains about the UAE soigneurs and their rough, calloused hands and Primož complains about the Team Jumbo Visma bus always smelling like socks. As their list of bird sightings grows, so too does their knowledge of one another. They ask about each other’s teammates and sports directors, girlfriends and parents, childhoods and adolescences. After a few short weeks of constant contact, they’re all caught up on one another’s lives.

Though he still considers Primož to be rather perplexing, Tadej feels closer and closer to him, sees him as both a mentor and a friend, walks in his shadow with total devotion and admiration. He finds himself texting Primož at odd hours of the day, sending him cycling jokes from Twitter and news about recent bird sightings from a rather obscure listserv. Soon, he’s trawling the internet _looking_ for things to show to Primož, as though he’s afraid Primož will forget all about him if he doesn’t get a text twice a day.

Primož, for his part, never has his phone nearby unless he needs it, something which drives Tadej insane, makes him lay awake anxious that he’s annoying the older man, getting on his nerves. The reality is that Primož is a new father, and aside from the time he spends training and the few hours during which he goes birding with Tadej, he’s at home taking care of his infant son, a task which thoroughly exhausts him. Sometimes, however, he has the mental clarity to shoot Tadej a text explaining this: _Baby duty. Will look later._ These texts are a godsend, absolving Tadej of all his silly worries. Even the humblest messages Primož sends flood Tadej with a giddy ecstasy. In these moments, he’s simply thrilled to be remembered.

* * *

“Alright,” Primož announces, stretching. “I’m getting in.”

“Same,” Tadej echoes immediately, not wanting to be left out. The two get to their feet and Tadej watches as Primož gets a running start, rushing into the surf head on before diving in and swimming to where the waves come up to his chest. He pops his head back out above the surface and shakes the water out of his hair, a smile on his face. Tadej braces himself for the chill as jogs into the water, swimming out to Primož, joining him. A rough wave crashes over their heads, making Tadej nervous.

“Whoa, fuck,” Primož cackles, spitting water out. “That's good, huh?”

"Oh, I don't know," Tadej jeers, looking up innocently, a smirk plastered on his face. “I’ve swum in better.”

“Fucking bastard,” Primož laughs, lunging for him, dunking Tadej beneath the surface. Tadej squirms against the other man, succeeding in pulling him down with him. Primož globs onto Tadej from behind, wraps his arms and legs round his waist and chest, Tadej’s toes struggling to find contact with the sandy sea floor as he’s shoved mercilessly under the water again. Gasping for air, he manages to finally get a toehold, uses its friction to contort his body and free himself from Primož’s clutches, enthralled and ecstatic at this playful development, despite the fact that the depth of the water is out of Tadej’s comfort zone as a swimmer.

Face to face now, he grabs Primož’s shoulders and throws his legs around Primož’s stomach, tries his damnedest to submerge the other man, but Primož is too strong, and they end up entangled in a struggle for dominance, the waves throwing them every which way.

Just as their tussle begins to peter out, Primož runs his hands down Tadej’s back and holds him close, the surf washing over them, carrying them another half meter closer towards the shore. It’s a brief, accidental moment, but the second Tadej is in Primož’s arms, he becomes aware suddenly and all at once of the overwhelming power of being held by him like this and it suffocates him, turns his face pale, fills him to the brim with some frightening, unnamed emotion. Primož lets go.

“You alright?” he shouts over the sound of the crashing waves.

“Uh-huh,” Tadej shouts back. “Water’s just too high for me. I got a little scared there.” It’s a half-truth.

“You want to swim back? I’m starting to get cold anyway.”

“Yeah,” he confirms, and the two set off for shore. Soaking wet, Primož grabs his towel from the sand and shakes it out before wrapping it around his shoulders, Tadej doing the same.

“It’s getting late,” Primož observes, taking a cursory glance at the sky.

“Yeah,” Tadej mutters absently, his eyes glued to his sandy toes.

“Tomorrow then? A little earlier? The sandpipers might be out if we catch the low tide.”

Tadej’s distracted by the act of collecting his various possessions and shoving them in his bag.

“Right, sounds good. Just text me.”

Primož folds up the towel, stuffs it in his rucksack and slings the bag over his shoulder. After double checking that they didn’t forget anything, the pair scramble up the rocky crevasse leading down to the water, emerging onto a forlorn and forgotten residential street, their commuter bikes u-locked to a nearby signpost. Tadej unhitches his old steel frame Peugeot from the sign, watches as Primož bungees the cooler to the rear rack of his 80s-red Bianchi. Primož flashes Tadej a small smile before mounting his bike. Returning it shyly, Tadej gives Primož a short, awkward wave and, wordlessly, the two depart.

* * *

The wind whistles through the half-cracked window in Tadej’s bedroom, the glow of the full moon casting pale shadows across the apartment’s rather neutral décor.

Tadej scrolls through his phone, reading and re-reading his texts with Primož, trying to decide if he should mine Twitter for one last funny tweet to send before going to bed. Throughout this exercise, his mind wanders. Remembering the sensation of Primož’s legs around his waist makes Tadej’s chest fill with pressure, almost as though he needs to let out a whine to alleviate it, similar to how one bleeds excess air from an over-inflated balloon - lest it burst.

He visualizes what it must have looked like beneath the water’s surface, pictures their limbs entangled in struggle, Primož’s palms flush against Tadej’s chest, Primož’s legs wrapped around him, Tadej doing the same, clutching Primož impossibly close, Primož writhing and squirming against the embrace before finally breaking free and then, for that brief moment, facing Tadej and holding him gently as the pair submitted to the demanding turbulence of the sea.

Tadej closes his eyes and imagines himself burying his face in the crook of Primož’s neck, feeling the warm, wet skin against his nose and forehead. The thought startles him, a shock of adrenaline accompanying it, elevating his heartbeat. His eyes fly open. On impulse, he stirs to look at his girlfriend fast asleep beside him, tucked beneath their navy comforter, her flaxen hair sprawled out across her pillow. He has the distinct urge to wake her up just so she would look at him and see that he's there, but he succeeds in fighting this.

In that moment in his bed, Tadej feels queasy and full of dread.

 _It’s probably nothing_ , he tells himself. _It’s definitely nothing._ It takes him hours to fall asleep.

* * *

From then on, whenever Primož touches Tadej – be it a friendly clap on the shoulder, a ruffle of hair, a departing hug – it makes Tadej afraid.

He can’t put his finger on the source of fear, but every point of contact causes him to seize up, sends ice shooting through his veins. It’s not like Primož is doing anything wrong. All of this is within the boundaries of acceptable behavior. For much of their time together, the older man is perfectly content to sit in the sand trying to pick out one kind of sandpiper from another, paying Tadej little mind, save to tell him the occasional story or comment on cycling every once in a while. And yet, when it comes time for them to pat each other on the back before leaving, Tadej’s filled with panic.

Paradoxically, despite his newfound apprehension, Tadej finds himself becoming even closer to his strange friend, opening up about deeper topics, such as relationship troubles or his insecurities as an athlete with regard to preparing for his first grand tour. On both accounts, Primož is kind and reassuring, speaking gently to Tadej with compassionate eyes. The younger man is unsure why discussing these things and eliciting this response makes him feel as though he’s run a marathon when it’s all over, wheezing and out of breath and vaguely achy. Still, he lives for these conversations and spends quite a bit of his time daydreaming about the next one, about knowing Primož just a little better than he did before.

* * *

One day, when they’re perched on a causeway peering through their binoculars into an expanse of muddy, reedy marsh searching for herons and bitterns, Primož seems to be in an especially foul mood.

“Fucking can’t see shit out here,” he complains, dialing back on the zoom. “The reeds cover everything.”

“Yeah, but eventually something will fly out,” Tadej offers, trying to be helpful, eyes scanning the stalks for movement. “They can’t stay in there forever.”

“Whatever,” Primož mutters.

Concerned, Tadej lowers his binoculars and turns to his partner.

“What’s got you all pissed off? Something wrong?”

Primož sighs, his mouth a tight, thin line.

“Every night the baby wakes me up,” he tells Tadej, voice low. “All the time. Crying. And I have to walk him around the house until he stops. Four, five times a night. I’m at my wit’s end, Tadej. My wit’s end!”

“Jesus,” Tadej mumbles. “That’s rough.”

Primož lets his binoculars fall around his neck. Rubbing his face, he stares vacantly out into the endless marshland, bracing himself against the causeway’s wooden railing.

“I started to sleep on the couch in hopes that I wouldn’t hear it there, but no. Sometimes I manage to sleep through it, but if the baby doesn’t wake me up, my girlfriend does.” A groan. “I know this is a part of fatherhood, but, fuck, I’m an athlete, you know? I need to sleep. I have to. I’m starting to get angry all the time, too.”

“I can imagine…”

“Fuck," Primož throws his hands up, "The worst part is, nobody tells you it’s this hard! People always joke about it, like, ‘ha-ha, you have a baby – good luck sleeping.’ It’s not funny! It’s hell. It's fucking hell.”

“Have you tried sleeping with headphones in?” Tadej suggests, trying to be helpful. Primož frowns.

“I’ve tried everything, Tadej. Fucking everything. Even worse, Lora’s mad because she’s tired too – we’re fighting all the time, and it’s only been six weeks. I call my parents about it, and they say to toughen up. Classic old-school Balkans shit, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tadej says, just to let Primož know he’s listening.

An unnerving quiet settles over them.

“I haven’t had sex in seven months,” Primož confesses, his face ashen, and after he says it, his gaze immediately falls to his feet.

"I, uh..." Tadej stammers, his face beet red.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that,” Primož mutters, embarrassed. Tadej doesn’t know what to do with this information. He doesn’t even know what to say.

_Jesus Christ._

“It’s okay,” he offers dumbly, after a pause. “I don’t, like, think less of you or anything.”

Primož shakes his head. “You’re too young to understand these things.”

“Rogla,” Tadej scoffs, putting a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “I’m _not_ too young to know what not getting laid feels like.”

Primož has a laugh at that, and Tadej laughs with him, grateful to see his companion's spirits lifted a little bit. Their laughter startles something in the distance, and on instinct the two scramble for their binoculars.

“Little egret,” Primož immediately declares. “Has to be.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Tadej confirms, following it above the sky. “Look at that plumage. Snow white.”

“Graceful little guys aren’t they, considering they’ve got those long fucking legs, huh?”

Tadej chuckles.

“One could say the same of us.”

* * *

Thinking about the conversation on his bike ride home, Tadej’s uneasy.

Something about it doesn’t sit right with him, even though he knows it’s perfectly normal to talk about sex with one’s friends. Still, even though Primož has a kid and (aside from being a little out there) is a totally normal 29 year old man, Tadej realizes he’s had this notion, this perception of Primož as being some kind of pure, sexless figurehead - as though the man’s above such earthly desires.

The mere thought of Primož having sex – or, in this case, not having it – makes Tadej's stomach churn. It’s not that he feels violated by the thought in any way or that he considers it inappropriate – after all, the pair have discussed pretty much everything else under the sun – it’s just that it arouses within him a kind of visceral fight or flight response he can’t explain. 

_A door’s been opened,_ he thinks as he rolls up to his apartment building. He can’t decide if he wants to shut it.

That night, when Tadej remembers the pair's two subtle transgressions – the day at the beach and the confession in the marshland – they evacuate his lungs and send an exhilarating shiver down his spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying *very* hard here to accurately evoke what it's like to slowly realize you're feeling some kind of heteroflexible way


	4. gull-billed tern

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unrelated, but i'm taking drabble requests on my tumblr (saint-rogla) now.

Tadej’s not sure why he’s pushing his boundaries, is not sure as to what is compelling him to ask Primož questions that, to the younger man, feel like small transgressions, coded somehow.

On the beach, they’re seabird spotting again – Primož hell-bent on getting a glimpse of his gull-billed tern. Being a wanderer around Monaco rather than a resident, it is a bird that has eluded them thus far.

“Have you been sleeping better?” Tadej inquires, still glued to his binoculars.

“No,” Primož answers immediately, rotating his shoulders to scan the sky. “Not really.”

“Vuelta’s not too far off now…”

“Yeah, I know, huh?” A weary sigh. “At least Lora is going home with the baby a week before so I can get some decent sleep.”

Tadej tries not to think too hard about this – about whether this means Primož and his girlfriend are in some kind of trouble, about any possible implications of his being untethered, at least for a short while. He shouldn't be thinking along these lines, he realizes. _Primož has a life outside of me and -_

“Tadej?”

The younger man’s startled out of his thoughts. “Oh?”

“You’re not listening.”

Tadej furrows his brow. “Hm? Did you say something?”

“No.” Primož lowers his binoculars to give the other man an open stare, his eyes catching the light in a way that only Primož’s eyes can, a way that gives them a soulfulness and innocence Tadej can’t break away from.

"What am I supposed to...?"

Softly. “The birds. The ocean.”

He can’t breathe – there’s that terror again. _How can he know I'm somewhere else?_ The gaze is broken, and Tadej looks at his sandy feet.

“I’m listening, I'm listening,” he mumbles, flustered, the crashing of the waves swallowing his voice as the tide begins to surge ever so slowly, the moon which governs it hovering flat and white against the pale blue sky. Sometimes Tadej forgets it’s there and when he looks up, he’s startled by its presence, as though it had gone away during the day, like the sun does at night. As he’s staring, a flash of movement catches in his peripheral vision, and instantly he’s got his binoculars tight against his face.

It’s there. It’s fucking there, the jackass, not only him, but three or four others as well, streaking across the landscape as on some kind of urgent, intractable mission. If he weren't looking exactly where he was looking, if his eyes flickered elsewhere for as much as a split second, he would have missed it, and with it, the opportunity to impress his friend.

“Rogla!” He cries out excitedly. “Rogla, holy shit, he’s there, he’s there! There’s three of them!”

“Fuck, fuck,” Primož swears, scrambling for his optics, and when he sees the family of terns, sees their sleek white bodies, their neatly-kept black crown feathers, their dark, elongated beaks, he breaks into a big, toothy grin and claps Tadej on his bare shoulder.

“Tadej, you bastard. You quick fucking bastard, you,” he laughs. Tadej’s face turns bright pink, and he smiles an embarrassed smile.

“Took me long enough,” he says, watching as the terns disappear into smaller and smaller dots until there is nothing left but the expanse of sky their wings made a canvas of for that brief, glorious moment in time.

Tadej takes the list out of his bag and hands it and the pen to Primož, who presses it against Tadej’s bare shoulders once more, scribbling their notes. Usually he’s fast at this, and as such, the resulting handwriting is borderline illegible, but this time, the heel of Primož's palm holds the paper in place, his fingers tight on Tadej’s shoulder, his thumb dangerously close to the base of Tadej’s neck, and when the pen nib grazes through the paper against his skin, Tadej’s eyes flutter closed and he tries not to shudder. Click of the pen, the pressure gone, the folding of paper. A deep exhale leaves his lips.

It happens slowly. They turn to face one another, and the bashful, happy smile Primož gives him - dimples and crows-feet accentuated with mirth, cheeks slightly flushed - makes Tadej’s pupils shrink and his eyes are weighed down with a foreign heaviness, as though he’s trying to speak through them, to shout, but as to what he’s trying to say and why, he is unsure. He returns the expression weakly, looks away, flustered. It was a split second, and yet, an eternity. All their little moments feel like this.

They sit and observe the waves come closer and closer to their toes, Tadej wondering why every little thing that transpires between them carries such magnitude, why it increasingly seems as though he is seeing a part of Primož nobody else is allowed to.

When they’re about to part for the evening, shirts slung over their shoulders, digging in their bags for the keys to their bike locks, Tadej steels himself for the hand on his shoulder, the _See you later, yeah?_ And it comes, but to his shock, instead of stopping, Primož wraps his arms around Tadej and gives him a gentle, tentative hug. Tadej’s whole body, tense and coursing with adrenaline, screams _don’t touch me,_ and yet, he cannot stop himself from gingerly wrapping his arms around Primož’s back, inhaling sharply and exhaling shallowly. The desire to clutch the other man to him flashes across Tadej's mind, and throughout his panic, something within him says, _don't let go, don't let go. If you let go, I'll never understand why I'm so frightened._

But Primož does let go, he has to, and as he does it, Tadej is hyper-aware of the positioning of each part of Primož's body relative to his own. He swears that the hug lasts a microsecond longer than it should, swears that he hears Primož let out a little wistful sigh upon its conclusion, swears that the older man's hands move slightly down towards the small of Tadej’s back, swears that, when they pull away, Primož’s mouth is mere millimeters away from his earlobe for a fraction of an instant. His throat tightens. Primož speaks first.

“Tomorrow, back to Monti, yeah? Meet at eight?”

“Yeah,” Tadej chokes out. “Pick me up?”

“Of course,” Primož smiles.

They part ways, their farewells casual. Why wouldn't they be. Nothing has happened.

 _Nothing about this is out of the ordinary_ , Tadej tells himself over and over, in time with the cadence of his pedal strokes as he rides home. _Nothing about this is out of the ordinary_.

Perhaps he’s imagining it all - the brinkmanship, the depth - but why he would do such a thing is beyond him. What exactly does he think Primož is doing? Becoming closer to him? Deepening their fraternal intimacy? How normal are these little touches in a relationship between friends? Tadej ponders this. He hugs his other friends all the time, no big deal. In fact, all the things he and Primož have done are totally normal and within the bounds of ordinary friendship. And yet, with Primož it is different somehow. _Maybe because he’s older,_ Tadej thinks. _Maybe because I admire him. Maybe because he’s so distant, so hard to understand._

There are a lot of maybes. Tadej recounts all of them over the course of a sleepless night.

* * *

It’s languid, the way they’re sitting on a picnic blanket along a grassy embankment overlooking the rocky bluffs, scouring their crevices for any sign of movement, anything that could be remotely construed as a bird of prey. They’re on the hunt for the peregrine falcon, that most elusive of interlopers, that elegant bird that traverses continents with its lonely, shadowy presence.

The wind rushes in their ears, their plain t-shirts billowing around them, offering the world short glimpses of their torsos. They’ve already seen two golden eagles and a handful of assorted passerines – though nothing new has come into view, despite their fervent searching. Regardless, it’s a lovely day, the kind of summer day where the wind offers a reprieve from the heat and humidity, where the scent of sunburnt pine needles mingles with that of disturbed earth, where the glare is always one degree away from oppressive, reminding all humans exactly which season they’re in. Tadej doesn’t want the day to end. To him, it is perfect, as are all these Saturdays spent looking out onto the horizon in search of winged life with this quiet and kind man he’s beginning to know, whose iciness thaws little by little.

Tadej’s focused on the distant treetops, adjusting the zoom when it happens, the arm draped around his shoulder. It’s casual, not yet committing to a hug or an embrace, a drape, only a drape. Tadej smothers a gasp at the sensation. There’s that _fucking panic_ again, that strange panic, the one that feels like heart palpitations, the one that makes him break out in a cold sweat, the one that makes his lungs feel as though they’re about to burst at any second from sheer pressure.

He cannot remember another time when he feared being touched like he fears being touched by Primož, fears what it does to him, fears the sensation that’s eerily akin to careening down an Alpine switchback at 70 kilometers an hour at the head of a race, just as dangerous, too. Primož doesn’t seem to pay the whole ordeal much mind. He’s gazing out onto the horizon, his eyes ponderous, his expression decidedly neutral. Tadej watches him watch the world.

“Bad luck today, huh?” Primož says absently, arm still heavy around Tadej’s shoulders.

“Yeah,” Tadej whispers, unable to find his voice. The totalizing, impenetrable presence of this man has a way of doing that to him, and, he suspects, to others. Primož turns to him, looks at him with that open, soft expression of his – somewhere between serene and inquisitive.

“Are you cold?”

“No,” Tadej lies. He is, in fact a little chilly from the wind, his skin rippling with goosebumps.

The arm remains, its weight suffocating, its touch unbearable, truly unbearable, and yet Tadej does not resist, cannot resist. He is paralyzed.

 _Is this wrong?_ The younger man wonders. _Why does it feel wrong?_ Even more concerning: _Why do I want it to be wrong? Why do I want to be closer to Primož than two professional colleagues should be?_

Tadej acknowledges the intense desire he harbors to be more dear to Primož than anyone else, to be his sole confidant, to be the person he trusts the most, something that seems impossible due to their difference in age and status and the fact that, in the peloton, they are still competitors, friendship be damned.

Despite this understanding of himself, the younger man is unable to see that the reason he wants to be so dear to Primož is simply because Primož is more dear _to him_ than any other, that Tadej’s life has come to revolve around the time spent in the shadow of his mentor and comrade, that this person is all he thinks about when he suffers the other man’s absence.

Tadej, unbeknownst to himself, spends literal hours analyzing each and every subtle interaction for some kind of hidden, higher meaning. Yet, even now, the thought of something beyond friendship eludes him – he is still concerned with the propriety of friendly intimacy, never once taking into account that which lies beyond the boundaries of the platonic. All he knows is that he has this visceral physical reaction to the touch of this man, one that registers as fear rather than what it really is - enthrallment. He is afraid of the touch because he is incapable of realizing that he wants it.

“We should get going.” Primož’s tired voice fills the silence, and when the arm leaves his shoulder, Tadej wants to collapse into a heap on the blanket from the bursting feeling in his chest.

On their drive home, he observes Primož, drinks in the lines of his features – his high cheekbones, his dark hair, his button nose, his gentle hazel eyes. Tadej wishes he looked like that, wishes he looked handsome and masculine and refined rather than what he sees when he glances in the mirror every morning: a baby-faced young man of average attractiveness with a nose that’s a little too beaky for his liking. Forgettable, utterly forgettable.

Upon thinking this, Tadej feels ashamed, and yet, he can’t look away. Primož catches Tadej in his act of observation and their eyes meet for a split second. The younger man’s gaze falls to his lap, his face hot with embarrassment.

“Any particular reason why you’re staring at me?” Primož inquires, his voice calm and polite – non-judgmental. Tadej is mortified, but he decides to play coy, taking a page out of Primož's own book by giving a vague answer.

“I’m just trying to understand you is all,” he answers cryptically. Primož’s eyes are focused on the road ahead, his expression carefully neutral.

“What about me are you trying to understand?”

This feels to Tadej like a game of war, with stakes just as high.

“Nothing in particular,” he drawls, trying to sound casual. “It’s just that you’re not exactly an easy guy to understand.”

A frown. “Really? I think I’m a pretty simple person.”

Tadej has to laugh at that. “No way, Rogla. You’re as mysterious as they come.”

Primož sighs. Quieter now, with a touch of regret: “I don’t try to be that way, you know.”

This knocks Tadej off-guard.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, defeated in his little game. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” 

The older man turns his head to look at his companion, his eyes alight with a hint of concern, a scintilla of vulnerability, gone as quickly as it came.

“Have I made you uncomfortable, Tadej?”

_Terribly, and for reasons I do not know.  
_

“No, not at all,” Tadej waves him away. “Why? Are you uncomfortable around me?”

Primož turns back to the road. “No, no. You’re a pretty easygoing guy, huh?”

“I guess so…”

“I’m jealous of that,” Primož confesses, a slight chuckle dissipating under his breath. “I’m not good at being around other people. This you know.”

“That’s okay,” Tadej finds himself saying. “I like you anyway.”

Primož’s expression softens.

“I like you, too,” he replies, his voice quiet.

Tadej's convinced there’s something in the statement that makes his stomach churn, something like sadness, like longing, like wistfulness. Whatever this something is, it squeezes the life out of Tadej, puts pressure behind his face, similar to the build-up of tears.

“That makes me happy,” Tadej remarks, careful to hide the emotion in his voice. “To hear you say that.”

“Of course,” Primož says, the placid stoicism returning to his features.

This moment, this strange, terrible moment, is over. In its wake, the younger man’s desperate to lighten the mood.

“So, owling Sunday night?”

His companion’s face brightens. “Technically Monday morning,” he smiles.

“Technically,” Tadej smiles back, relieved to be back to their regular camaraderie, an uneasy truce.

“But yes. Four in the morning, yeah? I’ll pick you up.”

“Perfect – I’ll still see you tomorrow afternoon at the marsh, right? For the bitterns.”

“Yes, yes, definitely.” Primož pulls the car into the driveway of Tadej’s apartment.

The atmosphere between them has changed again, has become heavier with the prospect of parting.

“See you,” Tadej offers weakly, opening the door.

An easy-going wave. “Ciao.”

They do not look at each other. Tadej restrains himself from watching Primož drive away.

* * *

_I like you, too._

He repeats the line over and over, wears out the memory like a pair of socks on the precipice of sprouting holes, trying to pinpoint what was in that voice, what was in that expression, why Tadej could’ve died happy right then and there and yet amidst the happiness, that same fear, raw and enigmatic.

_What we are doing is wrong._

It’s a feeling he can’t shake off, even though there is nothing he can pinpoint that would confirm the suspicion. They have acted entirely within the realm of propriety, and yet everything they do feels transgressive in some way.

Perhaps being close to Primož is just like this – maybe he’s just a man nobody is meant to ever really know, and to know him is to violate some unspoken rule of the universe, of human interaction. Tadej’s mind keeps drifting to the time they went swimming together, to the time Primož told him about the lull in his sex life, to the hug they shared a few days ago. It all feels so real, so interconnected, so dangerous, like they’re walking a fine line between what is considered acceptable.

He asks himself yet again what is and isn’t appropriate. Is it inappropriate to be so close? Is he being taken advantage of? Does Primož really have that much power over him, are they really that different in status? The only difference between them is nine years and the number of times they’ve won. They have the same jobs, and Primož, while being someone Tadej looks up to, is not his boss nor his keeper. The power is not real power, not the kind of power that lends itself to taking and being taken advantage of. And as for the nine years, he gets the sense that Primož is older than him, and yet this is not what separates them, this is not a barrier to their intimacy.

What separates them is what makes them kindred souls in the first place: they are both shy.

 _But I don’t want to be shy anymore_ , thinks Tadej, his knees held to his chest as he lays in a ball under the covers, the city lights filtering in through his dark curtains. _I want to know you. I want to you to know me, too._

But know in what way?

* * *

When Tadej sees Primož again, he seems agitated and distant.

“No sleep again?” Tadej asks, trying to lighten the mood. It’s a failed attempt.

“No,” Primož replies tersely.

"Oh."

“Sorry,” Primož adds. “I don’t feel like talking today.”

“Okay,” the younger man mumbles, feeling strangely devastated. “You’re still on for owling right?”

Absently: “Of course, of course.”

It's another split-second moment. Primož gives Tadej a nervous glance, and for an instant, Tadej is almost certain that in that glance, he recognizes his own fear, the all-consuming fear that washes over him whenever Primož touches him.


	5. moths

The coffee is burnt, bitter. Tadej drinks it anyway, the disposable cup nestled just under his chin, the aroma rousing him from the few hours of sleep he managed to get before Primož picked him up. He’s thankful his girlfriend’s out racing - she'd certainly disapprove of his getting up at three in the morning to try and spot owls, of all things. 

The pair pull out of the gas station, the glare of its bright white lights fading behind them as they disappear beneath the pitch black sky into the folds of the mountains.

“Owls,” Primož murmurs. “I like them.”

A frown. “You’ve never even seen one, Rogla. How can you know?”

“Oh, from books and things,” Primož takes a sip of his coffee. “The wise owl. His big eyes – so strange, so strange.”

“Do you think they’re actually wise?” Tadej wonders.

“You have to be wise to hunt. Or else you’d starve.”

The statement sends a chill through the younger man. It’s noticed.

“Are you alright?” Primož inquires, quiet.

“Yeah, just tired,” Tadej mumbles. “Head hurts.”

“There’s some aspirin in the glove box.”

Tadej opens it, takes out the bottle of blue pills. He untwists it and pops one into his mouth, chasing it down with coffee.

“Thanks.” The throb in his head is already starting to dissipate.

To be out in the wilderness at three in the morning with Primož enthralls Tadej, puts a big sloppy smile on his sleep-deprived face, helps the caffeine add a certain twitchiness to his fingers and darting eyes. The rumbling of tires as they breach the transition from asphalt onto crushed gravel, signaling their arrival into that place where civilization ends and nature begins. Primož turns to Tadej and gives him a soft smile.

“It’s a nice morning,” he says gently. The stare goes deep to the core of Tadej, pulls something out of him, makes his mouth open a little bit, as though to gasp.

“It is.” He can barely find his voice.

 _Something is different here._ It's that same charged atmosphere, the one Tadej's still unsure if he's imagining it or not, the one where everything else disappears and there is only Primož, Primož and everything he does, his subtle actions, the way his teeth peek out from his parted lips, the way his eyes soften and all things soften with them.

They park on an embankment, Primož gathering the lantern, shoving the blanket and their binoculars from the back seat into a canvas bag. After double-checking that the car is locked, the pair shuffle down to a familiar spot, grassy enough to lay the blanket over without the lumpiness of rocks, well-positioned with a good line of sight to the treetops. Being out here like this at this time of night feels delightfully illicit.

The darkness is impenetrable, and the whole world is shrunk down to the pinpricks of city lights in the distance and the halo around their lantern. In the night, crickets sing and frogs from a nearby creek can be heard croaking, but for once in their time together, there are no birds. Their absence is striking to the pair, who are used to the twittering whistles of starlings and the chattering songs of thrushes and warblers. Now they have only each other for company, with no one else around for miles. All human noise has become faint and far away. The bag remains strewn across the expanse of the blanket. There's need for binoculars yet, for there is nothing to see.

“Where do the birds go at night?” Tadej asks, wishing he took his coffee with him.

In the glow of the lantern, Primož looks older, gentler. He shrugs, rolling up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. “The trees, probably. To sleep.”

Tadej furrows his brow. “How do they not get found? Why can’t we see them if that’s where they sleep?”

“They’re good hiders, yeah? They have to be. It’s hard to be a bird.”

“What kind of bird would you be, Rogla?”

“Hmm, good question.” He ponders it. “Everyone says I’m an eagle on the bike, but I don’t have it in me to be so vicious, you know? I think, hmm, I’m like the tern. I hunt, but by fishing, not by stalking prey, all alone.” Softer: "I don't want to be seen as that. A lonely person. Ruthless, like the eagle."

Tadej looks up at Primož, gazes at him with complete sincerity, as though to say, you can tell me these things, these quiet, personal things.

"I don't see you that way at all," he murmurs. Nervousness clouds Primož's eyes, and he lowers his gaze.

A mumble. "Thanks."

“What about me?” Tadej inquires hurriedly, desperate to keep them tethered together in this moment of intimacy. “What kind of bird would I be?”

Now in a completely different mood, Primož flashes him a mischievous smile. “A turkey.”

“Fuck you,” Tadej laughs, giving the older man a jab on the arm.

“Shh, Tadej,” Primož teases, jabbing him back, trying not to crack up, “You’re going to scare off the owls.”

“I don’t hear any fucking owls,” Tadej jeers, shoving him, and they laugh and laugh, light and easygoing, like they’ve known each other for centuries. Tadej’s heart swells in his chest, and as he watches Primož smile and joke with him, he thinks to himself, _I love this, whatever it is.  
_

For an hour, they keep their ears peeled for the hooting of owls, and throughout it, in the back of his mind, Tadej is reminded how alone they are, the empty night making it seem like they are together at the edge of everything, outside of time, all knowable things remaining enclosed within the halo of their lantern.

No birds to be found, they resort to counting the moths flocking to their light in droves, admiring the prettier ones, the ones with minty-colored wings and interesting mottled patterns, the big ones whose bodies block the glow of their lamp, casting weird shadows across their faces. Primož slips his finger under the wing of a particularly large one, pale yellow-brown with four spots, one on each corner, peering out like eyes into the night. To his surprise, it crawls onto his hand. He lifts it up, observing it gently, his eyes wide with wonder. When he speaks, he whispers, as though afraid of startling it.

“Silk-moth,” he says, audibly holding his breath.

The moment seems so reverent and improbable, this point of contact between such different souls, that Tadej’s left speechless, his eyes fixated on the moth's feathery antennae. With awe, he manages to whisper back, “How do you know?”

“They’re the biggest moths,” Primož answers, holding his hand perfectly still. “My father told me this when I was a child. They used to fly down into the mine at night sometimes, attracted by the glow from above. A reminder of the outside world, he said. Do you want to hold him?”

Tadej shakes his head furiously. "I can't."

An inquisitive frown. “Why not?”

The younger man looks away, his answer honest. “I’m afraid to.”

Surprised by such a strange answer, Primož chuckles awkwardly. “Why? It’s not like he’s poisonous.”

“It’s not that.”

Primož cocks an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Their eyes meet once more in an intense and penetrating search for answers. Tadej's voice is hoarse, his face contorted with emotion when he tells Primož his fear. 

“I have this weird feeling that if I touch him, he’ll die.”

“Tadej…” Primož’s so startled by the words that the name comes out urgent and un-whispered, and frightened by the sound, the moth flies away into the depths of the valley below.

The two men look at each other, peer into the shadows that accentuate their noses and cheekbones, and Tadej sees something in Primož, something private, something devastating, something like care, like longing, like regret. It’s gone in an instant, just like the moth. Again, another one of these tortuous moments, so deep and so fleeting, Tadej's left searching for breath.

“Are you cold?” Primož asks, the words coming out quieter than they should for such a question.

“Yeah,” Tadej says, knowing it’s the right answer – or the wrong one. He’s not sure. “A little.”

In the silent darkness, he listens to the shift of weight on the blanket and instinctively closes his eyes. He feels Primož’s legs on either side of his own, feels Primož’s arms slide under his, wrapping gently around his chest from behind, feels Primož’s chin rest on his shoulder, his breath hot in Tadej’s ear.

_Oh._

Tadej could scream, he could cry – it’s as though his heart’s about to give out on him at twenty, as though he’s going to collapse under the weight of his own body and whatever immense and intangible burden he’s shouldering. It feels like he’s shaking uncontrollably, but in reality, he’s rigidly still save for the shallow, ragged inhale and exhale of his breath.

Primož’s palm is flush against Tadej’s stomach, his fingers brushing where the hem of his t-shirt meets sun-kissed skin. It hits Tadej suddenly and all at once that every one of those little signals he’d picked up on were true, were, in fact, imbued with subtle meaning; that there _was_ something going on there, that all those questions he had asked himself about propriety and friendship were based on the suspicion that beneath the surface something else was buried, something unmentionable, something incredible and terrible and so out of the question, that to even dwell upon it was a sin, a crime, an invitation.

The palms on his stomach feel familiar to him - they're the same palms that held him close as the waves swept them away, the same palms that kept him in that embrace for just a millisecond longer than they should have, the same palms that clapped him on his shoulder and lingered there, the same palms that braced the specimen log against his bare shoulder, thumb brushing ever so slightly in circles at the base of his neck.

_I am afraid._

Afraid of what, he wonders, because right now, it's like his whole body is crying out in an agony that brings him no pain, singing, vibrating in a chorus of _oh god._ Even in this moment, he ponders whether or not this touching is friendly too, even at this late stage, he's still asking himself if he's misinterpreting everything, overthinking it, assuming the worst. What if, it dawns on him, he wants the worst, wants those things to be true, and that's why he thinks of them? What if they've been daydreams instead of warning signs all this time?

He feels Primož’s nose nestle itself in the crook of his neck, hears him inhale deeply and exhale in a staggered shudder. It makes him dizzy, faint, like he's ten kilometers from home after riding two hundred and is catapulting the bike forward on fumes and momentum alone.

_What is happening right now?_

Tadej wants to cry, wants to burst into tears, but not out of sadness – out of something else, something unfathomable, something that pierces the very core of who he is, something that's so close to unlocking a door Tadej's not sure he wants to open. Every second he spends in the embrace chokes him, smothers him, eviscerates him, wrecks him, leaves his lungs spasming, asthmatic, unable to get a full breath in.

With one hand still holding Tadej against him, Primož slides the other further down, hovering right above the waistband of Tadej’s chinos, fingertips dangerously close to wandering underneath it. Tadej lets out a little gasp, finds that he has a difficult time keeping his eyes open all of a sudden. Still, he thinks he's imagining it, still, he's asking himself, _i_ _s this what I think it is?_

Another slow, inquisitive inch, fingers grazing the elastic of his underwear now, Primož’s lips pressed against Tadej's neck, right where his roaring pulse echoes loudest.

“Are you alright?” Primož murmurs, voice warm and rich against the shell of Tadej’s ear. “Please be honest with me.”

“Yeah,” Tadej breathes, and as he does it, he knows it is the truth, which only frightens him more.

The hand slips beneath Tadej’s boxer-briefs and comes in contact with curls of soft, blond pubic hair, and that's when it hits Tadej, bludgeons him, the desire, desire he's harbored so long, desire buried so deep within him that he couldn't even recognize it for what it was whenever it bubbled to the surface, his mind always finding a way to rationalize it as something, anything else, as though to spare him from the harsh realities of all that comes with it, all the questions, all the emotions.

Gathered in Primož's arms in the dead of night, there's nowhere else for the desire to go, no where for it to run to, no means of explaining it away, and so it crushes Tadej, forces itself to the surface. Helpless against it, his body cries out for touch, screams for it, every cell alive and hyper-aware of each little sensation. The arousal he feels is visceral, painful, liberating, frightening, uncontrollable, confusing, and existential all at once. It is killing him.

Gently and with some apprehension, Primož takes Tadej in his hand, feels the heft of him, and Tadej can hear each sigh, each labored breath with perfect clarity.

_This is new for you too, isn't it?_

Tadej wants so desperately for this to be true - that what is happening between them is just as important for Primož as it is for him. He's right in his suspicions, but he has no way of knowing this, and so, he simply believes. 

They try to catch their breath, their labored pants filling the night silence. Tadej prays Primož is able to gather the will to continue what he's doing, his mind locked in a mantra of _If you stop, I'll die. I don't know how, but I will. If you don't show me what is happening to me right now, I'll never know, and if I never know, I don't know what I'll do. I don't know how I'll sleep at night. I won't know who I am._ More petulantly; _If you stop here, I'll never look at another bird again for the rest of my life, I promise you that. I promise.  
_

Finally, with a shuddery breath, Primož moves, tentatively and with great tenderness. When his thumb brushes away the pre-come already beading at the slit of Tadej's cock, Tadej lets out a little whine, a hint of the repressed desire to scream, to cry out from the sheer catharsis of the moment, and yet all he can manage is a choked-back moan as Primož begins to take him in gentle, deep strokes, each movement overpowering, drowning him.

“Primož,” he sighs, and Primož kisses his neck again.

“You’re close,” he observes, just above a whisper.

“Sorry,” Tadej breathes, deeply embarrassed by the fact that it’s been only a minute or so and he’s already not long for this world.

His companion's voice is kind when he tells Tadej, “It's alright. I don’t mind.”

Primož finds his rhythm, and the night is filled with sounds Tadej’s humiliated by: the sound of slick hand on cock, the sound of rustling clothing, the sound of his own pleasure, sounds he can’t stop himself from making, sounds halfway between a moan and a cry, higher pitched than his speaking voice, helpless, mortifying, submissive sounds. In a rush of sensation, Tadej feels his jaw go slack, his pupils dilating, his thighs quivering, his hips rutting into Primož’s palm, and when he comes, it’s fast and hard and all at once, a jolt through his system, forcing from him a deep groan.

Panting, they stay utterly still, each trying to catch their breath from the ordeal. Tadej wonders if he'll ever be able to.

After a moment and out of necessity, Primož retracts his messy hand, wipes it on the blanket, his other hand still holding Tadej close.

Tadej hears Primož unbutton his jeans, unzip them, and against his lower back, he can vaguely feel the motion of Primož's hand as he fucks himself, his head still nestled in the crook of Tadej’s neck, where he buries the sounds of his desperate weakness. Tadej closes his eyes, listens to the other man’s repressed moans, his shivery gasps loud and hot against Tadej’s skin. Faster and faster, he can hear it now, the slickness of it, hurried, as though he's trying to get it over as soon as possible, as though his pleasure's uncouth or impolite, an unwanted guest he'd like to rid himself of swiftly. 

_Primož,_ Tadej thinks, closing his eyes, picturing what the scene behind him must look like, picturing Primož's faces of ecstasy, his shivering body, his hand where it shouldn't be. Tadej wants to ask Primož awful things like _does that feel good? Do I make you want to come? Because you made me want to, more than anything I've ever fucked or been fucked by and right now I don't quite know how to reconcile that._ Faster and faster the movement against him, and then, an exclamation, a quiet _oh_ , and that’s when Tadej knows, and when he knows, he clenches his own eyes shut tighter, picturing the other man’s ecstasy, reveling in it himself.

In the ensuing silence, Primož wipes his hand off again, and again their heaving chests put mingled breath in to the air. The magnitude and wrongness of what they’ve just done washes over them, muted mercifully by their afterglow.

Slowly, Tadej shifts his weight, turns himself around on his knees to face his companion who looks at him with wide, uncertain, frightened eyes, and Tadej can't stand to see him like that, can't stand to see his own fear reflected back at him, and so, overcome with sea of different emotions, he throws himself against Primož, wraps his arms around his back, buries his face in his chest and clutches him as tight as he can.

Primož, shocked for a second, gingerly returns the embrace, holds Tadej against him gently as the sun begins to crack in a pink sliver over the craggy, interrupted horizon. They regain control of their bodies in each other’s arms, dazed, weak. Tadej fists his hands in the loose fabric of Primož's shirt, and as he inhales the scent of lavender detergent and sex and sweat and _Primož_ , it takes all of his willpower not to cry.

That’s what the fear was, Tadej realizes as Primož runs his slender fingers through his hair. It was the fear of knowing, the fear of wanting, the fear of not being able to turn back, the fear of love.

 _I wanted this,_ he thinks to himself over and over, his lips pressed in a kiss against the fabric of Primož's white t-shirt.

_I wanted this so badly, and I didn’t even know._


	6. plovers

Their hunt for owls never does come to fruition.

In place of birds, however, they have discovered one another, and afterwards, they drive back in silence. After all, what use is there in talking about it – what is there to discuss other than the fact that they have done something utterly unspeakable to one another? This truce lasts for quite a bit of their trip home, but like many stalemates between friends, this one is unsustainable.

Tadej watches Primož watch him, watches his hazel eyes flicker away from the road every so often to steal a nervous glance. The pink penumbra of dawn fades into the pale blue hue of early morning and in its light, their features become increasingly defined and yet made softer. At a certain point, Tadej, in his agony, in his state of confusion and longing and something that makes him feel like he could weep, speaks, his voice small and low.

“Primož?”

“Mm?” Primož does not look away from the road, his expression impenetrable.

“Why did you do that?” Tadej inquires quietly. He can swear he sees the same pain and uncertainty in the eyes of his companion, but with Primož, Tadej can never be sure.

“I don’t know,” Primož answers after a long pause. He pinches the bridge of his nose, lets out a long, agitated sigh. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters to himself in genuine, if muted distress.

Tadej tries his best not to panic, not to freak out. This is not going well. In that tense moment, he’s convinced it’s all going to end here – the birdwatching, the friendship, the something else that burns inside of him, begging to be let loose.

“Do you not want to see me anymore?” he asks, barely above a whisper. That pained look again.

“I do,” Primož replies, his tone even and flat, “Want to see you, that is.”

Tadej lets out the breath he’s been holding.

“I’m glad," he exhales.

A shake of the head. “I’m sorry,” Primož murmurs.

Softly: “For what?”

“For doing that to you.”

“No, no, it's alright,” Tadej urges, desperate to assuage Primož of his guilt. Primož’s eyes are locked on the landscape in front of him, trying his damnedest to remain calm and neutral, the tension visible in his face at the corners of his mouth.

“It was wrong,” he sighs. “To do those things.”

“Stop it.” Tadej peers up at Primož, his eyebrows knitted in concern. Primož turns to the younger man and offers him a weak smile.

“Okay,” he says. Tadej reaches across the center console and takes Primož’s hand in his own.

“Tadej, don’t.” Primož shakes his head, a look of uncertainty flashing across his face, gone in a millisecond. Crestfallen, Tadej lets go, ashamed.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. His companion frowns.

“I think the best thing we can do is pretend this never happened." The words are terse, matter-of-fact.

“But it did,” Tadej whispers in quiet protest, his voice smothered out by the pain in his chest. “It did happen.”

“It shouldn’t have.”

They enter the city, and upon seeing the density rise up around them, Tadej knows he only has a few more minutes left in the presence of this man, a man he cares deeply for, a man who had, only an hour prior, made a mess of him in the early morning darkness. This time is squandered by both mens' cowardice and, in silence, Primož pulls into the circular driveway of Tadej’s apartment building. All at once, panic rises up in Tadej's lungs, his joints, and he is consumed with anxiety at the prospect of having to reckon with this.

“I don’t want to be alone right now,” he blurts out. His companion puts the car in park, offers Tadej a glance that tries so hard to be unfeeling and yet the sympathy can’t help but shine through in those gentle eyes. A hand on the young man's shoulder, warm and familiar now.

“I’m sorry, Tadej.” The apology is genuine. “I have to go.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?” Tadej wants to grab ahold of Primož and beg him, _please, please let me see you tomorrow._

“Yeah,” Primož answers apprehensively, unable to meet the other man's gaze. “The beach.”

“Okay, then,” Tadej nods, reassured enough to allow himself to leave. He grabs his binoculars case and slings it over his shoulder. “Goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye,” Primož repeats. It takes every ounce of effort Tadej can muster to force his eyes away from the image of Primož all hunched over his steering wheel, and when he opens the car door, he’s sick to his stomach. Primož offers Tadej a wave, and with the closing of the door, it’s over.

This time, Tadej watches Primož drive away, cranes his neck until the white car rounds a corner and disappears.

* * *

The elevator journey up to his apartment lasts an eternity, and the second Tadej’s alone in his flat, he presses his back to the front door and slides down it, unable to sustain his own weight. He’s always fancied himself to be a strong person, easy-going, someone who’s very much in control of himself at all times, someone who’s never caught off-guard by what he feels. Now, however, he is at the mercy of his emotions, which churn turgid and raw in his gut. His mind races, taking his body with it. Knees to his chest, he relives the ordeal, analyzes every part of it.

 _Are you cold?_ Primož had asked, and Tadej knew then, knew somewhere deep beneath the surface, that this was a proposition for touch rather than an inquiry about the temperature, and when the touch came, Tadej felt as though he was being choked out right there, so agonizing was the response his body produced, intoxicated by a cocktail of adrenaline and fear and desire so strong it seemed like fear, too. The breath in his ear, the hands on his stomach sliding down, he relives them, and he can’t remember a time he wanted to be touched so badly, save perhaps for the time he lost his virginity, but, he counters, what he experienced with Primož – it was like another virginity had been lost.

 _He was so gentle_ , Tadej thinks, running his hands through his hair, pulling at blond tufts as though to make his emotional pain physical in some way. _He was so gentle, and he seemed just as afraid when he touched me, the way his breathing was all heavy and shallow._ Tadej recalls the lips pressed against his neck, the way Primož had asked him softly, _Are you alright? Please be honest with me._ The consent was there, it was asked of him – Tadej had an opportunity to say no, and he did not, rejecting it not out of discomfort or peer pressure but because he wanted what had happened to him, wanted it desperately, his whole body screaming _yes, yes, please._

 _Am I okay?_ He tries to take stock of himself. Does he feel violated? Used? There’s a residual stickiness left in his underwear, and when he notices this, Tadej has the immediate, impulsive urge to take a long, scalding hot shower. He’s dizzy on his journey to the bathroom, his sandals flapping against the parquet wood floor in an irregular rhythm, reverberating throughout the empty apartment. He slams the bathroom door in agitated frustration, immensely glad that Urška’s not here. He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye. Tadej's not sure what he's going to do when she comes back from Spain next week, either, but he doesn’t want to think about that now.

Steam fills the room. Tadej strips himself naked, and as he does so, he gets the sense that his body has been irrevocably changed by the event, that being touched by Primož has made his limbs and his torso and his cock all seem foreign to him, as though they belong to someone else, which in a way, they do. He jumps in the shower, not caring that the temperature is too hot. Under the running water, he once more asks himself those same questions: _Do I feel violated? Do I feel used?_

Even with the explicit consent, the touching straddled the boundary of being wanted and unwanted, a boundary that’s always muddled when it comes to sexual experimentation, for one does not know what one wants and does not want until it has been offered to them. That is, after all, the point of experimenting.

Tadej cannot decide on the answers to his inquiries. He does feel violated, in that his friendship with Primož has been violated, has been irreparably altered, as has his understanding of himself. Tadej’s discovered things about his body and his soul that he never, ever wanted to know, things he theoretically could have gone his whole life without knowing.

In a way, Tadej is angry at Primož, angry because surely he must have known that he would have done anything for him, that he admires him so, that he’s so grateful for every second of his attention. _How could I have said no?_ he thinks, and yet, this feels like an excuse. He’s making up this indignance to cover for the fact that he desperately, desperately wanted what was being offered to him, that he loved every second of it, that, when he relives each wonderful moment, he wants to cry, not out of distress or the repression of some kind of trauma, but because he has never in his life experienced desire so intense and release so cathartic.

Tadej scrubs himself once, twice, three times. He tries not to panic too much about what this means for his sexuality. For him, in this moment, what’s happened has nothing to do with men and whether or not he’s attracted to them and everything to do with _a_ man – Primož Roglič.

This is because Primož is different - Primož is the only man he could ever imagine doing these things with. Tadej runs down the list of men in his life, his friends, his teammates, men he cares deeply for, and yet when he tries to think of them in that way, he is unable to – something blocks him from finding any titillation or intrigue in it, something he designates as repulsion. And yet, when he thinks of Primož, thinks of the sounds he made in the dark and his arms around him, Tadej shivers in frightened delight. He has no way of explaining this, has no grasp on the nuances of sexuality, a topic he’s never given much serious thought to, long considering it a question he always knew the answer to. He likes girls, simple as that. Done and done. Door closed. But then, his mind drifts back to Primož, and the uncertainty creeps back in.

Tadej wonders, for the umpteenth time, why, _why_ Primož touched him, wonders how Primož could have possibly known that Tadej wanted to be touched, when Tadej himself didn’t.

This isn’t about power, Tadej thinks, because Primož always has power, and Primož knows this. It must have been for some other reason – because they’re close enough to keep each other’s secrets; because the opportunity presented itself and Primož had his own curiosities to sate; because Primož couldn’t stand not being touched for so long, and Tadej was just _there._

That last idea unsettles Tadej the most, and he recalls once more the conversation in the marsh about Primož’s sex life. Was the older man _that_ desperate for intimacy? Tadej shakes his head furiously, droplets of water flying about. Such a notion sounds wrong to him. Primož has never been the kind of person to let such petty desires control his life or create such a massive lapse in judgement. It must be something else. _Maybe he cares for me in a way that goes beyond friendship._ Tadej can’t force himself to believe this, no matter how much he wants to. He wants to believe this because out of all the possible scenarios, this is the most forgivable one.

He thinks about what comes next. Tadej knows that they won’t be able to go back to the way things were – or at least, _he_ won’t be able to. Their relationship is different now, uneasy.

A shift in the air as the shower begins to run cold, and Tadej lets it, not giving a damn about it, feeling rather sorry for himself, full of self-loathing. His self-loathing stems from the fact that, more than anything, Tadej wants Primož to touch him again, wants to be held in those strong arms, wants to those perfect lips and that button nose pressed against his neck, wants to be unraveled once more in such a gentle, apprehensive way. When Primož held him, Tadej felt so cared for, so wanted, and this is what upsets him more than anything.

Tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, the young man pleads silently into the sound of running water, over and over again, _Primož, Primož, what do you want from me?_

* * *

When they see each other again the following day, Primož acts as though what had transpired between them never happened. He’s his same quiet but subtly excitable self, the clocks of their lives rewound to before that night in Monti. 

“Good chance of plovers today, eh?” he smiles, clapping Tadej on the back. Tadej feels nauseous and overtired from two sleepless nights in a row, but he tries his best to respond in kind.

“Should be,” he smiles weakly.

Primož looks at him in a way that says _I know you are suffering but we absolutely cannot talk about it._ Tadej hates this. He looks away.

They lock up their bikes, gather their belongings and scramble their way down the overgrown path to the waterfront. It’s a cloudy day, and as such, even on the beaches far flung in their periphery, there’s nobody in sight. The chance of rain's too high to justify beach-going for most people. However, this _is_ the kind of weather plovers seem to like, and Tadej had read on the birding listserv a few days prior that a group of little-ringed plovers had been spotted not too far from here. Having exhausted the sandpipers, terns and gulls, it’s the last seabird on their list and both are eager to check it off.

Primož lays out his big striped-red beach towel, which catches the wind and hovers for a few delicate seconds as it’s draped onto sand. Tadej follows suit, the blue terry cloth a stark contrast against his pale torso as he sits down. No matter how much time they spend in the sun, their stark tan lines never seem to go away. Primož pulls his shirt over his head, and the sight of his skin startles Tadej, who averts his eyes. This is agony.

The pair lay on their stomachs, propped up on their elbows, and, saying nothing, they skim along the shore through their binoculars for plovers. There’s a gaggle of sandpipers out, the different types in various stages of plumage making for a worthy challenge, one that occupies them for quite some time, seeing as plovers and sandpipers are quite similar – it wouldn’t be unheard of to find a few odd-birds-out hiding amongst the ranks.

Normally, this would be the time Tadej drums up questions to ask Primož, questions like, _what do you think they’re eating?_ Or _Why are their legs so long?_ Tadej can already picture Primož saying, _Hm! Good question!_ Before proceeding to take to his field guide or smartphone in search of possible answers. This ritual is dear to Tadej that the thought of it not happening again pains him deeply, and so, out of a sudden fear that their little routine will all but die out, he wills himself to ask something, anything about the birds.

“They eat little mollusks and stuff right? That’s what they’re digging for?”

Primož seems distracted. “I don’t know, huh?” he mutters.

Rejected and distressed, Tadej fights the urge to cry. _What’s the point of even doing this anymore?_ He wonders. _Why are we even out here if things will never be the same? Why are we pretending like this?_

A deep sigh. “I don’t see any, yeah? Do you?”

“No,” Tadej admits, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Does that mean you want to call it a day?”

Defensively. “No, no. We’ve only been here an hour.”

In terse silence, they observe the birds once more, for how long, neither is sure. However, at a certain point, Tadej feels Primož’s eyes on him, the stare open and intense and, still peering through his binoculars, Tadej pretends not to notice, even though the sensation of being stared at sends a shiver down his spine.

Whatever’s happening seems like a war game of some sort. Pinioned under Primož’s gaze, a familiar tension returns between them, so palpable it could be cut with a butter knife. Tadej can’t move, he can’t breathe – it’s as though he’s hiding from something very, very dangerous. In some ways, it’s not an inaccurate sensation.

Slowly, and with great trepidation, Primož inches closer and closer to Tadej, Tadej ignoring this until he can no longer. They’re shoulder to shoulder now, Tadej hyper-aware of every centimeter of Primož’s skin against his own. The younger man lowers his binoculars, turns to see Primož staring out into the sea, his eyes unfocused.

“Lay down on your stomach for me,” Primož says, voice low and expressionless.

Stunned, his heart riding a bunch sprint in his ribcage, Tadej takes off his binoculars and does as he’s told, stretches himself out, the towel soft against his cheek as he rests his head in the crook of his arm. The rushing of the waves mingles with the roar of Tadej's pulse in his ears. Primož’s face brushes against Tadej’s shoulder, his lips soft against Tadej’s skin as his hands run down Tadej’s back as though he’s both afraid to touch him and yet totally unable to stop himself.

Tadej closes his eyes and lets the sensation wash over him. He’s astonished at just how little of this physical contact it takes to make him hard – he can’t help but contrast it with the minutes of kissing and petting such a thing requires when he’s in bed with his girlfriend. When Primož drapes his weight over Tadej, straddling the back of his legs, Tadej’s instantly aware of the other man’s arousal through the fabric of their swim trunks and he gasps, both terrified of this unknown territory and enthralled by it.

Primož slips his thumbs in between the waistband of Tadej’s shorts, coaxes them halfway down his thighs before doing the same to his own. Tadej can barely force air into his lungs when he feels Primož rut himself in the valley of his ass, Primož's breath hot in between Tadej’s shoulder blades, his stomach touching the small of Tadej’s back, contracting and expanding with the exchange of air. A whimper escapes through Tadej’s parted lips.

“Primož,” he chokes out, as though to let the other man know that he’s there. Primož lowers himself on top of Tadej, propping his elbows on either side of Tadej’s shoulders, his face pressed against Tadej’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” Primož breathes.

There’s something about the way Primož rubs against him like this – so close to something so forbidden Tadej can’t even bring himself to think about it – that makes the younger man desperate, turns him on so much he can’t stand it, and he finds himself bucking his own hips in time, trying to get just a little friction between his own cock and and the towel and his stomach. Primož moans, his breath coming out in shivers as he fucks against Tadej, muffling the sound of his pleasure in the sensitive place where Tadej's ear meets his jawline.

 _Please look at me,_ Tadej begs silently, _Please say my name, please acknowledge that it’s me you’re doing this to. I’m here, I’m right here._ Tadej wrests his arm out from underneath his chest and, gingerly, with great affection, he reaches up to touch Primož’s hand with his own, holding it tightly. When Primož entwines their fingers together, Tadej’s left breathless, for even a display of tenderness this subtle moves him profoundly.

Tadej succumbs to the movements, to the sounds, to the sensations, lets Primož use him, lets himself be taken, lets it all wash over him, carry him away, all resistance gone. With a sharp, deep groan, Primož collapses on top of Tadej, and Tadej lets out a little gasp when he feels the sticky heat coat his lower back in staggered pumps. Suddenly Primož's body feels very heavy, and Tadej’s relieved when the other man releases him in order to dress himself and fetch his t-shirt, with which he wipes off his companion.

Tadej can’t move - he's too stunned, too paralyzed by what’s just transpired. He can sense Primož beside him, and yet it still takes him several seconds to gather himself, physically and emotionally. After a moment, he summons the strength to pull up his swim trunks, roll onto his side and sit up.

When his eyes finally leave the ground, he sees Primož sitting on knees before him, his face buried in his hands, the very picture of confused and horrified shame. This is completely unexpected and, unsure what else to do, Tadej reaches out and rests a hand on Primož’s shoulder. Seeing that the touch has not been rejected, the younger man wraps his arms around his companion who, albeit reticently, returns the embrace, runs his hands along the expanse of Tadej’s back. They inhale each other's scent, sink into each other's touch.

“Please touch me,” Tadej breathes, reaching out for Primož’s hand, dragging it between his legs. “Please.”

Primož nods, and Tadej clutches him close as he undoes the drawstring of Tadej’s shorts. Tadej pulls them down himself, and the act of being naked before his companion makes him strangely emotional. He lies down, using Primož’s rucksack as a makeshift pillow before coaxing Primož on top of him. Propped up on one elbow, his face buried in Tadej’s neck, Primož straddles Tadej’s thighs as he takes Tadej in his hand. With a soft groan, Tadej holds the other man tight against him, runs his fingers through his windswept inky locks, kisses his shoulder, drinks in the soft warmth of his skin.

In that moment, all he wants is for Primož to kiss him and kiss him deeply, yet whenever Tadej moves his head in that direction, the other man tenses up, evades him in subtle ways. This breaks Tadej’s heart, but he swallows the hurt, and for now, he forces himself to be thankful for what he’s able to get from Primož’s lips as they press against his jawline and part for breath.

Tadej bucks against Primož’s palm, moans into the crook of Primož’s shoulder, kisses him where he’s allowed to.

“Primož,” he breathes, clinging to Primož desperately.

Primož’s lips tease where Tadej’s ear meets his jawline.

“It’s alright?” he asks in a murmur.

“Uh-huh,” Tadej chokes out, interrupted by a moan as Primož teases the ridge of his cock with his thumb, something that’s a revelation to the younger man. “Oh, god, oh, there, there,” he gasps, eyes wide.

“I like it there too, huh?” Primož remarks with a chuckle.

Tadej can’t stop his sounds, desperate and helpless, from escaping into the air between them, where they're swallowed up by the rushing surf. He is in ecstasy and he gives himself to it, terrified once more that this is the last time. Spasms coarse through him and he jerks his hips up in response. A hand job’s not supposed to feel this good, he thinks, but it does, but it does.

“God, fuck, Tadej, you’re right there aren’t you?” Primož groans lasciviously into Tadej’s ear.

“I’m there,” Tadej whispers, holding Primož as close and as tightly as he can. “I’m there, I’m there, kiss me, kiss me please.”

Primož kisses Tadej’s neck, and Tadej can't even care that the one thing he's asked of the other man has been ignored because he’s drowning in pleasure all over, his corporeal tension unraveling with a moan, the white heat flooding through him as come coats his stomach and Primož’s fingers, mingling with pubic hair and loose grains of sand.

After a pause to regain his composure, Primož reaches for the t-shirt again, wipes himself and his companion clean, an act of courtesy. Before the other man can protest, Tadej grabs hold of his waist and pulls him on top of him. Off balance, they roll onto their sides, Tadej pressing gentle kisses against Primož’s chest, hands running along Primož’s back.

As soon as the afterglow’s even slightly subsided, Primož comes to his horrified realization again and he immediately goes rigid in Tadej’s arms, his chest rising and falling in shallow heaves. Startled and concerned, Tadej pulls away, and for a minute or so they avoid each other’s eyes. Still naked and vulnerable, Tadej reaches a point where he can’t stop himself from looking up at his companion, whose expression is full of anger and pain.

Softly: “Rogla?”

Primož shakes his head vehemently, unable to look at the man in his arms.

“I feel so disgusting,” he mutters, fear and loathing in his eyes. “It’s sick. I know it’s sick.” Quieter now, “But I couldn’t stop myself.”

Tadej’s chest aches.

“Don’t say that,” he whispers, taking Primož in his arms again, trying to comfort him. “Please don’t say things like that.”

“It’s filthy - _filthy_ \- and yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Primož confesses, his voice low and unstable. “I almost cut you off yesterday. I was _this_ close to doing it, too, saying, Tadej we can’t be friends anymore. We can’t be alone together anymore, because I’m sick. I’m so sick. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. That would be so cruel to you, no? Why be cruel like this to Tadej? I asked myself. He’s done nothing wrong.”

“Stop, Rogla, please,” Tadej pleads into Primož’s skin, his words choked with emotion. “Stop, just stop it.”

Realizing he’s caused his friend great pain, Primož lets out a shaky sigh and tentatively returns the other man’s embrace.

“I’m sorry, Tadej,” he murmurs softly. “I’m sorry I’ve done these terrible things to you.”

“They’re not terrible,” Tadej protests, clutching Primož tighter. “Stop saying they’re terrible.”

“Don’t make excuses for me, yeah?" Primož argues. "I know what I’ve done, I know what I’ve done. In the middle of the night, I took you in the woods and I –“

“Do _not_ say what I think you’re going to say,” Tadej almost shouts as he cuts Primož off just to spare them both the agony of the words he knows lie at the end of that sentence. “That’s _not_ what happened, okay? It’s not, it’s just not, because what you were going to say implies I didn’t want it too, and I did.”

“Tadej –“

“Maybe I didn’t _know_ I wanted it at the time, Rogla, but I need you to know that I did consent to it, that I was alright, really." Tadej lowers his voice, tells the other man another truth. "When you touched me, it hit me all at once, how badly I wanted you to, and it was good, okay? What we did. To me, at least. Even if it’s wrong. Even if it’s wrong, it doesn’t make it any less real. And it doesn’t make it terrible, either.”

Surprised, touched, and visibly relieved by what Tadej’s just told him, Primož reaches up and strokes his companion’s hair, kisses the top of his head, tells him once more that he's sorry.

“Look at you," Tadej murmurs coquettishly, touching the other man's face. "You don't want to stop doing this. I know you don't." 

Caught off guard by the sudden change in tone, Primož inhales sharply, tightens his grip, buries his head in Tadej’s shoulder.

“You're right, fuck, fuck. This is going to ruin my fucking life,” he mutters dejectedly into Tadej’s neck, kissing him there. 

Tadej can't fight a bitter laugh. “We all have dirty secrets, Primož. This one’s just ours.”

"I guess so," Primož replies absently, his eyes closed as he drinks in the sensation of holding and being held. "I guess so."

Surrounded by the sound of gulls, the crashing of waves, they settle into this new state of being, both trying to come to terms with their respective longing and all the consequences that come with it. For hours they lay there, Primož unable to stop himself from picking out a bird every so often, their former familiarity returning to them slowly but surely, and when Tadej leans up to ask Primož a question about gull-billed terns, Primož smiles at him with the same open, serene, fond expression that left Tadej breathless the first time. It leaves him breathless now.

And then, at four o’clock in the afternoon, three hours after what the meteorologists originally predicted, the air ripples with raucous thunder.

“Fuck,” Primož exclaims, glancing up at the darkening sky. “That, uh, looks bad.”

“Yeah.” It's all Tadej can muster. He didn't want this to end.

With rain imminent, the two separate quickly, scramble to dress themselves and collect their belongings. They hurry up the path, trying to make it to their bikes before they get soaked, the thorny foliage biting at their ankles and calves.

A sudden impulse strikes Tadej, and, caught in the spontaneity of the moment, runs with it.

“Rogla,” he shouts over the wind. Primož turns to him and before he can protest, Tadej grabs his face and pulls him into a forceful kiss, releasing him after a few blissful, wonderful seconds.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” the younger man tells him, their eyes locked in an intense stare.

“For birdwatching?” Primož asks, cocking an eyebrow, trying not to smile.

“Of course,” Tadej chuckles. “What else would we be doing?”

Primož throws his leg over his bike and laughs.

Neither make it home before the rain.


End file.
